The Light That Brings Us Together
by Virgo Alien
Summary: A midnight excursion at an old, abandoned mansion brings together a group of unique individuals to the plight of a mysterious redhead, whose dark past threatens the safety of the world. It's up to Beca and her friends to stop the darkness, but little do they know of the consequences and events they trigger by doing so. [Season 3 ongoing]
1. What They Found

**Introductory A/N:** This story is largely inspired by the video game, Kingdom Hearts (in which Brittany Snow actually voiced a character named Naminé in one installment of the game) and the X-Men franchise. It plays around the concepts of light and dark, as well as sociopolitical issues faced by minority groups, with the Pitch Perfect characters we all adore.

While you **don't** have to have played KH to understand this story, the depth and grittiness of the theme might require some more thought than your average fan fiction. I wrote the story under the assumption that the readers aren't KH fans, but because of the popularity of the X-Men, I don't doubt that most will have no trouble understanding the plot later on when it gets there.

* * *

 **Chapter One: What They Found at the Old Abandoned Mansion**

"Are you sure about this?" whispered a boy with dark brown hair nervously as he laid his bike on the ground gently.

It was a warm summer evening, barely half past midnight, and two teenagers were crouched behind a large bush outside the gates of an old mansion. The compound was known by most of the locals to have been abandoned for over a decade, and everyone had a least one second-hand story of strange things happening to adventurous (or drunk) teenagers wandering into the lot in the middle of the night.

"It's too late to go back now," whispered the boy's companion, a small and pale girl with hair a slightly lighter shade of brown than his. "Besides, even if it isn't money or drugs in there, I'm positive it's something someone doesn't want anyone to find out about."

"Then maybe we _shouldn't_ be snooping around!" warned the boy, grabbing her arm before she could leave the cover and safety of their current position. She, however, merely rolled her eyes at him and jerked her arm away.

"Where's the fun in _that_? It's our last summer before graduation. We should end it with a _bang_." As she said so, the braver of the two stepped carefully around the bush under which they hid their bikes. The light of the full moon made up for the absence of lamps on the dark and secluded street and aided her as she approached the walls of the mansion. She motioned to the boy to follow her quickly.

"Should we really be passing through the _front gate_?" he hissed, looking around wildly for security cameras.

"It's the _only_ gate. And don't worry about cameras; there aren't any."

"Maybe not ones we can see—"

"Would you quit being a baby?" she snapped. "Look, the perps don't need security cameras 'cause everyone else thinks this place is haunted. Whoever drummed up those stories about people losing consciousness were probably in on it, too." She finally paused at the end of the stone wall where it connected to the gates and turned to him with a scowl on her face. "Besides, wasn't this _your_ idea?"

"Yeah, but now that we're here…" But before the boy could completely express his hesitation, his friend was already swiftly and effortlessly climbing over the narrow metal gate. He let out a dramatic sigh before following, though his attempt was a lot less graceful than hers. Eventually, they both managed to get into the property without a hitch. They crossed the large unkempt yard without trouble and arrived at the mansion's raised stone patio.

The girl looked up at the large wooden double-doors and eyed its hinges, noting how dusty they were. "This door hasn't been used in a long time," she observed. "Whoever's hiding something in there must be using another entrance."

"Where do you think it is?" the boy asked.

"Doesn't matter," she replied with a smirk. "We're making our _own_ entrance."

She stepped off the patio and, with greater agility than an Olympic gymnast would dream to possess, took a running leap straight toward the mansion's wall. She boosted herself off a ground-floor windowsill, latched on to a second-floor one, and pulled herself up before side jumping onto the wide roof of the patio.

The boy snorted up at her. "Show off. I could have easily given us a lift, you know."

"No, Jesse, wait—!"

But she was too late. Eager to show off his own abilities, the boy named Jesse stepped off the patio, onto the hard ground, and thrust his hands in front of him palms-down.

The ground split and cracked loudly, forming a rough circle around his feet. Then, with a loud lurch the earth beneath Jesse rose to a ten-foot column, allowing him to easily step onto the roof where his friend was still crouched low. His proud smirk slid off his face when he saw the angry look on hers.

"Okay, genius, now put the ground back _exactly_ how you left it," she scolded. "So much for not leaving a trace!"

"Oops. Sorry, Beca!" Jesse quickly tried to mend his mistake by pushing the risen earth back to its original position, but someone had already heard and felt the ground's displacement.

* * *

"What was that?"

A tall and poised blonde raised her fist, signaling her own companion to freeze. The figure behind her stopped advancing and shrugged.

"I didn't hear anything," said a male and distinctly British voice. He took a single step forward, into the moonlight, which revealed his tall stature, chiseled jawline, and short, wavy blond hair.

"Did you at least feel that?" the girl beside him asked irritably, referring to the soft tremble beneath their feet that happened a second later.

The Briton frowned. "Okay, _that_ I felt."

The two were just about to enter the abandoned lot through its gates when they felt the tremor. The young man pointed to his partner and used a variety of hand signals commanding her to stay where she was while he investigated, to which she responded by rolling her eyes and marching on stubbornly. Her companion shook his head in exasperation before following.

After cautiously crossing the overgrown yard, they arrived at the front doors. The Brit made the same observations Beca had about its hinges, while his female partner noted the disturbance in the ground near the window adjacent to the patio.

"It looks like someone dug up the earth and put it back," she observed. "And very sloppily, I might add."

The Brit relaxed his stance. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" he commented with a light smirk; his partner only huffed in reply. "All right, Swanson, we know you're there," he called out, looking around the vicinity for signs of other intruders.

"I bet Mitchell is with him, too," the girl muttered to herself.

"Come down from the roof now and we don't tell your parents, yeah?" The Brit took a couple of steps back to get a better view of the roof above them. "I can see your sneakers, Swanson, come on."

Jesse Swanson defeatedly crawled over to the edge of the roof where he had been lying flat on his stomach trying to stay out of sight of the two blondes. "Dammit, how did you know?" he muttered half-heartedly. He knew, of course, that it was his fault. He nudged a fuming Beca beside him with his elbow, offering her to go down first.

A muscle in Beca's jaw clenched. She grabbed Jesse by the back of his shirt and pushed him off the roof before leaping down gracefully herself.

"Ow!"

"What are you two doing here?" Beca asked at once, frowning up at the towering blondes, before they could ask her the same.

"She means 'Hello, Aubrey, Luke. Nice to see you,'" grumbled Jesse from his position on the ground.

The female blonde, Aubrey, folded her arms and scowled at Beca. "I could ask you the same thing, Mitchell."

"Did you guys come here for the hidden treasure, too?" Jesse said eagerly, brushing dirt off his jeans. Beca threw him a look that told him to shut up.

Aubrey and Luke exchanged glances before the latter asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb with us," snapped Beca. "We got here first, so whatever is hidden inside this mansion is _ours_. We don't share loot. Got it?"

Aubrey raised an eyebrow. "And what exactly do you think is hidden in here?"

"We're, uh, actually not sure," replied Jesse, receiving a smack to the back of his head from Beca.

"Idiots." Aubrey sighed and shook her head. "Just stay out of our way—"

She had begun walking toward the door but was cut off by Beca's small frame.

"I'm serious, Posen. We were here first." Beca clenched her fists and assumed an aggressive stance. Irked by the brunette's audacity, Aubrey responded with her own threatening pose.

"Okay, everybody calm down," said Luke, holding his hands up in a pacifying gesture. "Aubrey, why don't we just explain it to them?"

"Are you out of your mind? They are not part of the mission!" hissed Aubrey. "They're just a bunch of unruly, undisciplined kids hoping to score some weed—"

"Wait, _you_ know what's in there?" demanded Beca. She paused to make sense of their arrival. "Huh... so your _Professor_ wants it?"

The two blondes wore visible reactions to the vitriol that came with the mention of their headmaster's title.

Aubrey and Luke were students at a prestigious and private institute for exceptional young people, headed by someone its students simply called "the Professor." To most people in town, it was yet another hoity-toity private school for the entitled children of the top one percent, but Beca and Jesse knew better than they did. What was "exceptional" about any student at the Barden Institute was his or her superhuman abilities.

But that wasn't to say that the students _weren't_ the entitled children of the top one percent. Though they were themselves "exceptional," others like Beca Mitchell and Jesse Swanson were not enrolled at the institute for specific reasons. Despite this, they respected their common situation enough to keep the true nature of the school a secret, for _all_ their sakes. While it was not exactly a secret that a number of humans have developed unique abilities, history had proved that things never ended well for these 'special' people, even if they did come from a small, seemingly nondescript town like theirs.

But just because they held a mutual agreement to uphold secrecy, that didn't mean they all got along with each other. Aubrey Posen, in particular, harbored a resounding dislike for any exceptional person who used his or her abilities to manipulate non-exceptional people, which put Beca Mitchell in a special case. Because she had powers that were not ostentatious in their form and difficult to prove, Beca got away with doing a lot of sneaky things to her targets. Such was behavior that Aubrey had spent years at the Institute internalizing _not_ to exhibit.

"None of your business," spat Aubrey, knowing how little respect Beca had for what the school stood for. "Now, I'm going to tell you one last time to get out of my way, Mitchell, or else."

"Or else what?" Beca raised her arms provocatively. "Come on, Posen, show me what they teach you up in that school that makes you think you're better than us."

"Guys, calm down," Jesse pleaded—just a second too late.

In the time it took for Aubrey's brow to furrow, and a bolt of white-hot lightning whipped at a spot on the ground mere inches from Beca's feet. It was only a warning shot, but Beca had nonetheless back-flipped to avoid it. Not to be outdone, she quickly retaliated by sweeping the ground with her leg, causing dirt to shoot into the air and shower the blonde. Aubrey shielded her eyes from the dust with an angry howl and struck back, but before her second bolt (no longer a warning shot this time) reached Beca, a metal rod materialized between the two girls, redirecting the lightning to the sky, just as the ground beneath Beca pulled her a few feet back.

The dust cleared to reveal Jesse with his arms raised in front of him. His face was pale and sweaty from both apprehension and the effort of moving the ground as quickly as he had to. Luke, on the other hand, wore an angry scowl on his face. His entire forearm had transformed into metal that stretched out past his fingertips and tapered to form the lightning rod.

" _Enough_!" he growled. "Aubrey, you're being childish; quit picking a fight with them for no reason. And Beca, if we solemnly swear that you and Jesse get to keep _whatever_ treasure you find inside, will you promise to stay out of our way?"

Beca glared at Aubrey once more before giving Luke a small nod. Hearing him scold Aubrey and not her made her feel slightly better. Satisfied, the Brit dematerialized his metal arm while Jesse dropped his arms and slid the piece of land with Beca on it back as neatly as he could.

Aubrey, meanwhile, straightened up and angrily brushed the dirt off her clothes. She turned around sharply and marched back toward the double doors.

Watching her, Beca couldn't resist remarking sarcastically, "Yeah, sure, pass through the front door. It probably isn't booby trapped or anything."

"It isn't. The foyer is the only place booby trapped," answered Luke, back to his calm and friendly manner. As though to prove this, he joined Aubrey by the door and began fiddling with the keyhole. "With a few goons or maybe some basic droids. Nothing we can't handle."

"And you guys are planning to _intentionally_ set them off?" Jesse asked incredulously.

"The mission was to enter through the front door, go through the foyer, and secure the target," said Aubrey, surprising all of them by actually answering him and divulging their mission objectives. "So yes, if that means setting them off then we are setting them of."

"Aren't you worried that triggering the booby traps might sound an alarm somewhere else?" said Beca. "You know, for the bad guys to send back-up or something?"

Beca was aware that the students at the Barden Institute underwent special physical training to be combat-ready in the event of an emergency—all under the umbrella of 'using their powers for good'—but it didn't seem like Aubrey and Luke knew what was waiting for them inside.

"Regardless, those were the Professor's orders," replied Aubrey, suddenly seeming less confident about the plan. "He knows more than we do and we trust him."

"Besides, if we run into more trouble than we can handle, _we_ could always call for back up ourselves," said Luke, forming an appropriate key for unlocking the door with the tip of his index finger.

Despite looking as old and dusty as it did, the doors swung open without a sound. The moonlight peeked in through the large bay windows opposite the doors, revealing an utterly rundown foyer. The decorative table at the center of the room was on its side, and the vase of wilted flowers that presumably stood on it now lay shattered in pieces on the dust-ridden floor. Cobwebs hung on the chandelier above them and stretched all the way to the grand staircase's bannister.

"Be careful and keep an eye out," warned Luke. "They may appear at any—"

Before he could finish his sentence, a sphere of dark energy materialized out of thin air and began to split open. Out of the darkness within, a small humanoid creature emerged. A knight's helm covered its face and revealed only two bright yellow dots for its eyes; the rest of its face was hidden by an uncanny darkness. The creature had large hands with sharp red claws on each one, and large, clunky, black feet. On its chest was an odd symbol—a thorny, crossed heart.

The four exchanged surprised and concerned looks. They had never seen anything like the creature before—much less the black hole it came from.

Suddenly, three more dark spheres materialized and out of them came three identical copies of the creature.

"Brace yourselves!" yelled Luke. The other three, none of whom were strangers to fights (simulated or playground) prepared themselves mentally and physically.

And so began their first real battle.

* * *

Aubrey and Luke regularly underwent high-tech combat simulations at Barden as part of their training, but their opponents had always been robots or brainless thugs shooting harmless lasers or guns. As for Beca and Jesse, though they've had their share of dealing with bullies growing up, their encounter with the strange creatures would the first time they would ever use their powers to actually fight, instead of using them to pull pranks or heists.

* * *

They each took one creature to fight.

Beca cartwheeled out of the way as her assigned creature lunged forward, swiping its claws at her viciously. With the creature momentarily disoriented from missing its target, Beca aimed a hard kick to the back of its head. When the creature recovered and lunged again, Beca lured it toward the wall and jumped out of the way just in time, causing it to crash headfirst into the wall from the force of its own momentum.

At the other end of the foyer, Aubrey was sending bolts of lightning straight to her creature's metal-covered head every time it lunged toward her. It could only take so much shocking before it fell to the ground, stunned.

Aubrey smirked triumphantly.

"Watch out!"

A creature landed from the air right beside her and aimed a spinning kick at her midsection. She was able to jump away just in time but the sharp edge of the creature's boot still caught on her shirt and made a small tear.

"This was my favorite shirt!" Aubrey cried in frustration. "Handle your creature, Swanson!"

"Sorry!" apologized Jesse. He had his fists raised and chunks of compressed dirt floated around him. "I had to go nearer to the window to get more of this stuff."

Jesse threw a one-two punch into the air and the chunks of dirt followed his motions and flew toward his creature, knocking it out temporarily and breaking apart upon contact.

"Can't you control rocks, too?" growled Aubrey, trapping her recently recovered creature in a ball of lightning before it could cut Jesse, who was busy compressing the dirt in anticipation of a counterattack. "They'd be more efficient in battle than soil."

"There are no rocks in the garden—"

"There _were_! Near the gate!"

"That's too far for me to—"

"Guys, this isn't the time to argue!" cried Luke, walking backwards as he parried his creature's swipes with his own arms, which he had turned into two large blades. In one final move, Luke managed to pierce the creature's chest with his right sword arm.

Aubrey, Jesse, and Luke watched as the creature let out a screeching cry, jerked uncontrollably, and dissipated, leaving a floating bright orb in its wake. The orb continued to rise into the air until it, too, disappeared with a small burst of light.

"Was that a—?"

At that exact moment across the hall, Beca had thrown a spear-shaped piece of broken wood like a javelin straight through her own creature's chest. The same scene unfolded before her eyes and she frowned up at the floating orb emanating a bright light. She made eye contact with the rest of them and gave a warning yell as the remaining two creatures began swiping at them again.

Jesse threw more 'punches' at both creatures after which Aubrey, taking advantage of their stunned state, blasted them with lightning. Luke turned his entire body into metal and walked into the field of lightning, conducting electricity with his body, and smashed the creatures' heads together.

They, too, dissipated, and two more glowing objects floated into the air.

"Was it just me," huffed Beca as she approached them in the aftermath of the battle. "Or did shiny _hearts_ just float out of those things?"

"We noticed them, too," said Luke before turning to Aubrey. "What were those things? They weren't the thugs the Professor warned us were guarding the target."

"I don't know," said Aubrey, shaking her head and looking pained at her confession. "But we should proceed with the mission anyway and just report what we saw after."

"All right," Luke nodded after a thoughtful pause. "You two," he added, gesturing at Beca and Jesse. "Are you still going treasure hunting or are you sticking with us?"

"Sticking with you," Jesse said at once, before Beca could say anything. "What? Those things could come out again at any moment. It might be better to stick together and pick up anything we see along the way."

Beca rolled her eyes but said nothing.

Luke broke two legs off a wooden table nearby and Aubrey set their tips on fire with a spark of electricity to make torches for Beca and Jesse. They had their own Barden-issued flashlights so, with all four of them equipped to traverse the the narrow, windowless hallways they proceeded up the grand staircase.

They inspected nearly every room they passed, all of which looked just as rundown as the entrance hall. Occasionally, the thick film of dust covering everything would make Jesse sneeze loudly, causing Aubrey to roll her eyes and Luke to chuckle and say, "Bless you." When they had been going through the mansion together for almost twenty minutes, Beca felt certain that there would be no more encounters with those creatures. So she suggested that they split up to make the search go faster.

"Okay," agreed Luke, "but let's stay in the same wing so we're still within yelling distance of each other."

"You know, it would help if you just _told_ us what you're looking for," shrugged Beca.

"You'll know it when you see it, Mitchell," said Aubrey, not unkindly. Seeing Beca do well in real combat raised the respect she had for the brunette, but not enough to divulge the mission's objectives.

Beca sauntered off looking for the farthest room, deep into the West Wing. _If someone wanted to hide something, they would make it difficult to find_ , she thought.

She was walking down a narrow hallway, observing the various paintings of landscapes or still life that she passed, when the area around her ankles felt a sudden brush of cold air. It came from the door on her right. Without giving it a second thought, Beca grasped and turned the handle.

A gust of cold air blew her torch out but she didn't notice it, on account of being momentarily blinded by the bright white light that emanated from the room. From the other end of the hallway, Jesse easily noticed the sudden presence of light and saw Beca standing before it.

"Did you find it?" he called out.

After blinking a few times to adjust her eyes, Beca realized that the room was painted and decorated in pure white, which added to the blinding sensation after having been walking around in the dark for half an hour. But what was strangest about the room was that its large windows, which under normal circumstances would have given a view of the gardens at night, were just a pure and inexplicable white light. Nobody could tell it was the middle of the night, being inside this room.

But Beca's eyes had barely registered all of that, because they were instantly drawn to the center of the room, drawn to the most breathtaking sight they had ever had the pleasure of seeing.

"Not it," breathed Beca. " _Her._ "

* * *

A/N: If you're curious about what the abandoned mansion looks like, you can search 'Kingdom Hearts Twilight Town Old Mansion' on Google Images. It is _very_ _loosely_ based on that.

Thanks for reading! I hope the story interests you and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about it.


	2. The Rescue

Chapter Two: The Rescue

"Not it," breathed Beca. " _Her._ "

When she would defend herself later on for being utterly, pathetically mesmerized, Beca would argue that there really should have been no wonder why her eyes were drawn straight to _her_. The only colors in the room besides white were _her_ copper red hair and _her_ stunning blue eyes. Even her dress was pure white. Her skin was pale enough from the lack of sun exposure for Beca to guess that she had been in this room for far too long.

Beca was engaged in a staring contest with the girl for a full ten seconds—allowing Beca to soak in every detail, from the soft curls of her hair to the small scar on her forehead—before the redhead's face split into a cautious but friendly smile that displayed two rows of perfectly white teeth (of course).

"Hi!" she greeted, in a bright voice that Beca imagined should only belong to an angel or on a children's television show. "I'm Chloe. What's your name?"

Beca blinked twice.

 _She asked you a question!_

"Uh, Beca…" she gulped, still standing by the doorway.

"Beca. What an interesting name..." The redhead smiled. "What are you doing here, Beca?"

"Becs, what are you—" Saving her the responsibility of answering, Jesse had finally reached Beca and popped his head inside the bright room. "—oh! H-hi, there!" he greeted Chloe in an exaggeratedly cheerful voice.

Beca rolled her eyes. Being in the presence of pretty girls always turned Jesse into a goof.

 _Not that I think she's pretty—I mean, she is but not in that way._

Beca continued to argue with herself while Chloe greeted Jesse and exchanged introductions. Arriving together shortly after, Aubrey and Luke also peeked in and began another round of introductions.

Beca noted that the redhead, Chloe, didn't really offer an explanation for her strange habitation; she just smiled politely after learning all their names. An awkward silence followed their introductions, but she didn't seem to care. She stood with her hands behind her back, her head tilted curiously, and her body twisting side to side expectantly.

"So," she began slowly, when her four guests had finished exchanging looks. "What are you all doing here?"

Beca looked at Jesse before making eye contact with Aubrey. The hope that she and Jesse would find stacks of money or sellable drugs inside the abandoned mansion was long gone and, clearly, Chloe was who Aubrey and Luke were looking for. So Beca chose to defer to them to explain _what_ indeed they were doing there.

"Yeah, Aubrey, what _are_ we doing here?" Beca asked the blonde cautiously.

Aubrey cleared her throat awkwardly and nodded at Luke, passing the responsibility to him. With Chloe turning to him expectantly, he couldn't exactly ignore her question.

"Uh, Chloe," said Luke, putting on his calm and friendly tone. "We're here to take you to a better place."

Beca smacked her palm to her forehead. Apparently the Brit wasn't aware of the euphemism. But, evidently, Chloe was. She backed away a step and—for the first time since Beca had seen her—she looked scared.

"What Luke means is," said Beca, stepping in quickly. The wrenching in her chest screamed at her to erase the fearful look on Chloe's face. "This place isn't good for you. We're here to help you escape."

Aubrey threw her a look when she said 'we' but Beca ignored it.

"I don't understand," frowned Chloe. "How is this place bad for me? I've only ever been happy here."

"Chloe, do you remember how you got here?" asked Aubrey. "In this room, at this moment?"

Chloe's frown deepened as she tried to remember. "Ow!" she exclaimed suddenly, bringing a hand to her head. "N-no, I don't remember. And it kinda hurts when I try to," she added, rubbing her temples gingerly.

"That's because the people behind this operation _wanted_ you to forget," explained Aubrey. "They've been keeping you here against your will and we're here to set you free."

Not having been briefed on their 'mission', Beca searched Aubrey's face for hints of deceit. For all she knew, Aubrey could be lying just to get Chloe out of the room. Beca herself was no stranger to lying, having used it often to get out of sticky situations, but she couldn't quite tell with Aubrey. Either the blonde was telling the truth, or she was extremely adept at lying.

"Have you ever been out of this room recently?" asked Luke gently.

"No…"

"So you don't know what it's like to be outside?"

"I have memories," Chloe answered, resuming the rubbing of her temples. She seemed to be trying to remember again. "But nothing recent. I've been having trouble with my memories lately, though…"

Aubrey and Luke exchanged affirming looks. In that brief pause, Beca suddenly realized that she could hear a faint beeping noise coming from somewhere in the mansion. She looked over at Jesse and assumed that he heard it, too, judging by the growing concern on his face.

"Trust us," said Aubrey kindly but with urgency, holding out her hand. She must have heard the noise, too. "Whoever put you here wouldn't keep you from the outside world if they were good people, would they?"

Luke turned to Aubrey and muttered discreetly, "We need to hurry."

"What do you say, Chloe?" Aubrey extended her hand further.

Chloe's bright blue eyes made contact with the other four pairs, one at a time. Beca internally cursed her stomach for flipping when Chloe locked eyes with her once more than she did the others.

"Well, you all seem to be really nice people," said Chloe, the brightness in her voice creeping back. "I guess I can trust you!"

She stepped forward and clasped Aubrey's hand with fervor. "I'm in!"

Beca saw a genuine smile take over Aubrey's face—she only assumed it was genuine, since she believed Aubrey's default emotion was disdain. To her surprise, however, the blonde gave a quick cheer and quickly led Chloe out of the room, their hands still clasped together. Luke took the lead back to the foyer, followed by Aubrey with Chloe in tow, and Beca and Jesse bringing up the rear.

"She's pretty, isn't she?" whispered Jesse, distracting Beca from staring jealously at Aubrey and Chloe's joined hands. "Made tonight worth it, even though we didn't get that treasure."

"She's all right," said Beca brusquely, wanting to change the subject. "Did you hear that beeping noise? Do you think it's why Luke's in a hurry?"

Jesse shrugged. "Maybe it's their Professor calling them back to base."

The group arrived at the foyer and was just about to descend the grand staircase when Beca noticed glowing red dots on each of their chests.

" _Halt_! Don't move!"

At the foot of the stairs, scattered around the foyer, were a dozen armed men. They were all dressed identically in dark colors and covered their heads in tinted helmets, making them virtually unrecognizable. They were pointing the weapons straight at each of them.

"Leave the girl and we will let you walk away," called the soldier in the middle. "You have five seconds."

"Beca," hissed Luke.

"Four—"

"Take Chloe and head for my car a few blocks down the street."

"Three—"

"What?"

"We'll distract these guys while you two prep the getaway car," whispered Aubrey.

"Two—"

Luke threw a quick smirk Jesse's way. "Swanson, you in?"

"You bet," the boy responded bravely.

"One!"

" _Now_!"

Luke formed his arm into a large quarter sphere and blocked the initial onslaught of bullets (although, judging by the sound they made when they hit the metal, Beca guessed they weren't bullets) as well as the soldiers' view as Beca grabbed Chloe's forearm and guided her to jump out the second floor window behind them.

Jesse had followed the two girls to the window to gather as large a piece of the ground as he could from the courtyard below and flung it back through the wall and toward the soldiers, knocking them out and causing a thick cloud of dirt to compromise their vision. Luke had opened a small hole in the metal shield through which Aubrey carefully aimed a thin bolt of lightning at one soldier and watched it bounce off to the others.

"Just like our training simulations, eh, Bree?" grinned Luke.

"And like our training simulations," she smirked, "I'm going to wipe the floor with you, Lukey."

"We'll see about that."

"It's 1-0, you better step up your game."

* * *

Beca and Chloe landed painlessly on the mansion's unkempt central courtyard. Chloe looked up at the sound of a crash and more shots being fired.

"Are they going to be okay?" she asked worriedly.

"Don't worry, Red, they're trained for that stuff," replied Beca absentmindedly, busy checking if the coast was clear to keep moving.

"You called me Red."

"Huh?"

"Is that my nickname?" Chloe seemed ecstatic at the idea of Beca giving her a nickname.

Beca turned in amusement and saw the girl's shining eyes looking even more beautiful— _wait, what?_ —when they reflected the stars above.

 _Snap out of it, Mitchell!_ Beca reprimanded herself, the voice inside her head sounding annoyingly like Aubrey's.

"Come on!" said Beca, ignoring Chloe's question and taking the former prisoner by the wrist. They sprinted toward the front yard, carefully avoiding the mansion's large windows in case any of the soldiers caught sight of them.

Turning a corner basked them in the mansion's shadow so Beca hadn't noticed the two soldiers on patrol until one of them yelled into his radio, "They're outside the East Wing!"

"Get back!" Beca pulled Chloe behind a statue of a young boy brandishing an oddly shaped sword for cover. Before Beca could figure out whom the statue was a depiction of, the soldiers fired their rifles. Beca discovered that she was right; they weren't bullets but concentrated pellets of white energy.

 _What's with all these energy thingies tonight?_ Beca wondered to herself just as one made contact with the statue and broke off the sword, which landed right at Beca's feet.

Beca took a peek through a gap between the statues's legs and saw the two soldiers advancing.

"Just stay down, okay?" Beca instructed Chloe, who nodded obediently. She picked up the marble sword and took a deep breath before pushing herself easily up and over the statue.

She landed right between the two soldiers and rolled out of the way just as the one on her left fired at her. As she expected, the bullet hit the other soldier instead.

"Argh! You idiot!"

Taking advantage of the commotion, Beca swung the sword forcefully across the idiot soldier's head and used his unconscious body as a shield against the second soldier's energy bullets. She charged toward him and, once she was near enough, threw the body-shield unceremoniously at the soldier. Struggling to push away his comrade, he was too distracted to see Beca's second attack coming. She delivered a few quick but powerful blows and knocked him out.

After making sure they were completely down, Beca grabbed the two rifles and threw them over the fence. She returned to Chloe, who was brushing dirt and debris from her dress.

"You're pretty good with a sword," she complimented with a smile.

Beca glanced down at the weapon still in her left hand. "Thanks. Let's go."

They could still hear the battle going on inside but Beca figured that Luke, Aubrey, and Jesse were doing a good job keeping them occupied, since they did not encounter any more soldiers as they sprinted across the front garden. Carefully avoiding the spotlight from a helicopter hovering overhead, they managed to get out onto the dark street. A few yards away they saw the only car within miles of the abandoned mansion, which Beca safely assumed was Luke's car. Seeing no more use for the marble sword, Beca flung it into a nearby bush and approached the car.

" _Tch_ , typical rich kids and their shiny red convertibles," Beca muttered under her breath, bypassing the door and leaping over it to get into the driver's seat.

"Cool!" Chloe mimicked Beca and hopped into the passenger's seat herself.

"Hmm, Luke didn't give me the keys..." Beca felt around beneath the steering wheel and checked the glove compartment in case he hid them there.

"Maybe this button will turn it on," suggested Chloe, pressing a red button near the ignition.

The car started at once. The touchscreen entertainment system displayed the car's location on a GPS map and Beca recognized the two other red dots as Luke and Aubrey still inside the mansion, although their slowed movement suggested the battle was drawing to a close. As to which side was winning, Beca still wasn't certain.

A button popped up on the screen near Luke and Aubrey's location. It was labeled 'Fetch' and Beca immediately pressed her finger to it. The engine roared to life and the car began driving itself at high speed toward the mansion. It barreled through the iron gates and made a reverse 180 at the foot of the patio's steps. Beca was about to get out and help the others when the front doors burst open and Aubrey, Jesse, and Luke sprinted toward the car.

Jesse gave one last mid-air, roundhouse kick to send a large rock flying toward a soldier and breaking on impact. Aubrey followed up with a blast of electricity.

The three simultaneously leapt over the trunk of the car and squished themselves into the backseat.

"Hit the gas!" hollered Luke. "The auto-drive has a speed limit!"

Beca grabbed the wheel and stomped on the gas pedal, automatically disabling the auto-drive. They all flew back into their seats and bounced up and down as Beca drove roughly and recklessly out of the mansion's grounds and onto the empty street.

"You should put this on," Luke leaned over from the backseat and fastened Chloe's seatbelt for her.

Beca resisted rolling her eyes in order to keep them on the road. Driving at top speed on an empty road at 2AM, they were fast approaching the city. Unfortunately, the rearview mirror showed three soldiers on motorcycles giving chase—not to mention the helicopter was also in pursuit overhead.

Like a woman possessed, Beca pressed her foot further down on the gas pedal, thankful that there were no pedestrians this time of day.

"Jesus, Mitchell! Where did you learn to drive—inside a Powerball machine?" growled Aubrey, as she landed on her butt painfully after Beca drove over a curb while making a sharp right.

"I didn't bother taking lessons, since I don't _have_ a car," retorted Beca. "And instead of insulting _me_ , maybe you could take down the guys chasing us!"

Aubrey, Jesse, and Luke all turned their heads just as one of the soldiers attempted a shot but missed and hit the pavement instead due to the distance between their vehicles. Aubrey attempted to stun them with lightning but Beca's driving made it extremely difficult to aim.

"I can't hit them with Beca driving like this!" she cried in frustration.

"You're the only one with long-range powers," said Luke. "I can't stretch my metal that far. Unless... Swanson, could you make a fissure on the road?"

"A fissure?" Jesse repeated hesitantly. "Like, a _permanent_ mark on ground? Shouldn't we be keeping our powers a secret?"

"We could blame it on an earthquake," shrugged Luke. "Nobody questions these things anyway."

"Just try not to make it too obvious," warned Aubrey as Jesse turned and got into position, kneeling on the leather seat.

He bent his arms and faced his palm toward each other, about a foot apart. He scrunched his face and pushed, his biceps bulging with the effort of bringing his hands together. He was trying to cause a mini earthquake by pushing the underground layers of soil together.

Beca slowed the car down to allow him to focus on one spot on the road, and soon they felt and heard the ground shake and crack behind them. A large fissure cut neatly across the road just a few meters before the three soldiers. Unable to react in time, they drove straight into it and flew off their bikes.

With a tired grunt, Jesse let his arms fall to his side. He slid back into his seat and wiped his sweaty forehead.

"Goddamn," he panted. "The mother fucking road was made of concrete! I had to dig deep and push the ground up just to break through it."

"That was very impressive, mate," said Luke, clapping him on the shoulder.

"It was," admitted Aubrey. "Foul language aside."

Jesse just flashed her a goofy grin at her compliment, which she returned with a half-hearted eye-roll.

" _Hello_ ," cried Beca from the front seat. "We still have a helicopter on our tail in case you forgot!"

"How are we supposed to—" started Luke. "Hang on, it's turning around…"

Beca looked up at the rearview mirror and confirmed it. The helicopter had turned off its spotlight and was now making a U-turn.

"Huh… Well, it looks like you're home free, Red—"

The group had been too preoccupied with the chase that they didn't notice that Chloe had been silent throughout the entire ordeal. When Beca made a quick sideways glance to her right, she saw Chloe slumped against her seatbelt with her eyes closed, her head bobbing along to the movement of the car but otherwise motionless.

"Chloe!" Beca shook the redhead's shoulder with one hand on the wheel. "What's wrong with her?"

Aubrey reached over and pressed her fingers against Chloe's pulse point, keeping them there for a few seconds.

"Her pulse is irregular," she reported. She leaned further forward and put her ear against Chloe's chest. "But she's breathing fine…"

With slight difficulty, Aubrey got off the back seat and sat on the center console, facing the backseat, and leaned backward to get a better view of Chloe.

"She's..." Aubrey gingerly lifted one of Chloe's eyelids, " _sleeping_."

"Are you sure?" Beca asked worriedly, as the car turned left onto the forest road that led to the Barden Institute.

"Positive. She's in REM sleep." Aubrey chuckled softly at the innocent way Chloe slept and gently tucked a lock of red hair behind Chloe's ear.

"Let's put her straight to bed once we get home," said Luke.

This time, Beca allowed herself to roll her eyes when Luke called the place 'home.' The idea that people like them—people with special abilities—banded together to study and train under some creepy "Professor" somehow annoyed Beca to no end. It was just so pretentious and elitist, how they considered themselves to be "better" than other specials just because they had training.

But in truth, Beca was sorely jealous. It was difficult enough to _control_ one's powers at the beginning, much less to keep it a secret from everyone in fear of being sent to a lab and be experimented on by the government, or worse, by some whacko scientist.

Having a support system and a 'home' where she could be free to be herself was what Beca craved.

Unfortunately, the Barden Institute was reserved only for snooty rich kids who could afford its tuition. Lower middle class people like Beca were excluded from this so-called 'home' for exceptional people. Even though it made sense to her that the institution needed funding to continue keeping everything a secret, Beca refused to be rational about her jealousy.

Her thoughts turned even sourer when they finally pulled into its luxurious driveway.

The Barden Institute made the old, abandoned mansion look like a middle class bungalow. Sitting on seventeen acres of land, the estate screamed luxury and extravagance. Beca could only see the façade of the mansion, illuminated by the garden and porch lights, but she could already make out more rooms than she could count on her fingers.

Beca got out of the car slowly. She and Jesse looked around the campus enviously while Luke unbuckled Chloe, and carefully lifted her into his arms.

"How did you know where Barden was?" Aubrey asked her suspiciously.

Interrupted from her sightseeing, Beca snorted. "I just pressed 'Home' on the screen. It was on auto-drive ever since the helicopter ditched us."

"Oh," muttered Aubrey, sounding surprised that Beca was clever enough to think of that.

"Well, we'd better get going then," announced Beca. Then she froze, suddenly remembering their forgotten bikes at the abandoned mansion. "Dammit."

"What are you talking about? You're not done here yet," Luke said softly, making sure not to wake Chloe.

Beca and Jesse exchanged looks.

"They're not?" Aubrey asked with a raised eyebrow.

"They helped us rescue Chloe," replied Luke, turning his back to them and heading inside. "The Professor would want to thank them personally."

* * *

"Dude, we're actually going to meet the enigmatic Professor," Jesse whispered excitedly as he and Beca followed the tall blondes into the mansion.

"Calm your tits, dude. They're just trying to make him a bigger deal than he is," said Beca. "That, or they need to keep this a secret and they're luring us into a trap to murder us. I'm betting on the latter."

They walked through the spotless grand foyer and through a number of hallways until they stopped just outside a fancy, polished wooden door that seemed to be the entrance to wherever the Professor was. Aubrey knocked thrice and waited.

About a minute later, the door opened.

"Our apologies for the lateness, Professor, but you said to wake you regardless of the time. We proceeded with the mission at midnight and are pleased to report that it has been a success."

If the man in front of them really was the Professor, then Beca was severely disappointed. He was an ordinary, middle-aged man with wavy brown hair. Also, he was wearing very unimpressive blue-and-white striped pajamas, thanks to which the theme song of 'Bananas in Pajamas' suddenly began playing in Beca's subconscious.

"For some reason, I thought he'd be bald and in a wheelchair," Jesse muttered in a low voice so only Beca could hear.

The Professor yawned and rubbed his eyes sleepily, but they grew wide once they focused on Chloe's sleeping form in Luke's arms.

"Oh! Great job, you two! I knew you two would... er, what are these two doing here?" His eyes swept over Beca and Jesse briefly but he quickly brushed his surprise off. "Never mind. Come in, come in! Ah, Luke," he held up a hand to stop Luke and pointed at Chloe, "kindly take her to one of the empty bedrooms first. I'll have Charlene look after her from here."

Beca watched as Luke nodded and walked back up the hallway where they came from and she found herself wondering if she would ever see Chloe again.

The room they entered was a small living room serving as an antechamber to the Professor's office and bedroom. The Professor waved them over to the luxurious couches and cried, "Sit! Sit!" while he pulled out a box of cigars from a nearby shelf.

He offered one each to Beca and Jesse, who both shook their heads politely before exchanging amused looks when the Professor turned away.

"Tonight—or should I say, this morning, is a cause for celebration!" he said jovially, sinking into an armchair and lighting a cigar. "My top students, Aubrey and Luke—ah, there he is!"

Luke walked in, having dropped Chloe off, and the Professor stood up to clap him proudly on the back.

"As I was saying, my top two students have succeeded on what I believe is their most important mission to date! Bravo!"

He let out a puff of smoke while Aubrey and Luke simply gave small humble smiles. Beca wondered if the two were usually this quiet around the Professor, or if there was something off tonight.

"And I take it," the Professor squinted at Beca and Jesse, "that they had some help from _you_ two, which is why you are here."

He continued to stare at Beca and Jesse, creating an awkward silence that neither wanted to break. _The Professor_ is _certainly an enigma_ , Beca admitted to herself. There was something unusual about his manner, but she couldn't place it.

"Beca Mitchell," the Professor said suddenly, pointing his cigar at Beca and then at Jesse. "And Jesse Swanson."

The two exchanged looks again after which Beca looked at Aubrey and Luke. They both had expectant looks on their faces, as though they were waiting for the Professor's secret verdict.

"Yes, I know about you two," the Professor continued slowly. "You can manipulate earth," he nodded at Jesse. "And you have superhuman agility."

The air in the room had changed considerably from light and celebratory to heavy and tense—at least for Beca and Jesse. The fact that the Professor kept tabs on their powers didn't sit well with either of them. Beca was now on her guard. She stole a quick glance at the door, which was not missed by the Professor.

"My apologies for startling you," he said, holding his free hand up. "But I assure you, I mean no harm. It is simply my job to keep track of youngsters with special abilities. It was not that difficult, with you two being around the neighborhood and all."

He motioned toward a framed certificate hanging on the wall behind them. It was too far for Beca to read but she could tell it was government-issued and legitimate.

"I was specially appointed by our Commander in Chief to monitor and, if possible, train any young individual who exhibits unique abilities. Those who wish to learn how to control and develop their so-called _powers_ come here to the Institute."

The Professor stood up and walked to the nearby bookshelf. Aside from a few volumes, there were framed pictures resting on the shelves. The Professor seemed to be in a lecturing mode so the four of them remained silent as he waved his hand around the room.

"Of course, this is all kept secret. Only a handful of individuals in the entire world—besides the students themselves, of course—knows what _truly_ happens inside our campus. It is kept that way to avoid special interest groups from getting involved and causing much trouble for people like the four of you, especially since most of you are minors.

"Aubrey and Luke here were two of my very first students when I started this institute almost ten years ago." He chuckled fondly in remembrance. "I met Aubrey when she was just a little girl short-circuiting microwaves and televisions, and Luke when he could only turn his ears into metal.

"Today, Aubrey can _manipulate_ electricity," he nodded at Aubrey proudly, "and soon even _generate_ it. And Luke here can now turn his _entire_ body into metal. Not to mention, they have already taken over the training of new students."

He picked up an old photo of what looked like Aubrey, Luke, their respective parents, and the Professor, grinning in front of the mansion.

"Listen to me boasting like a proud poppa… I was actually hoping they would tell you all of this themselves," continued the Professor. "Tomorrow, when I would have sent them to invite you to join us here at Barden."

All four pairs of eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"You want _us_ in your school?" asked Jesse.

"Of course!" the Professor laughed heartily. "You two are exceptional young adults. And it seems that, after tonight, you have proven yourself as having more than enough skills to undergo training at this institute. Why _wouldn't_ I want you?"

"Because we don't really have the means to go here," admitted Jesse, embarrassed. The Professor nodded understandingly.

"It is true that, in spite of my mandate, I regretfully had to place a rather sizable price tag on admissions to the Institute. But over the years the government has steadily increased our funding to manage our growing maintenance costs. Tuition covers most operational costs, but anything in excess is used for tech and R&D," the Professor explained. "This far along, I'm sure the Institute could afford to grant you two scholarships. Just don't go broadcasting that around," he added with a wink.

Jesse immediately turned to Beca eagerly. She could tell that he really wanted this, but she also knew that he would decline if she did. He was too loyal for his own good.

"I…" Beca trailed off, not really sure what to say. She had spent the past few years of her adolescent life hating the privileged kids that went to Barden. Not to mention, she had her mother to think about. "Don't know…"

"There's no rush to make a decision right now," insisted the Professor. "I'm sure it's difficult to think straight at this hour. Take a day or two to think about it. Here's my phone number and, well, you know where I live. Our doors are always open."

After handing them a business card (' _Dr. John Smith,'_ read Beca. _How unique_.) the Professor rose from his seat and so did the four of them. He extended his hand to Beca and Jesse in farewell.

"It was a pleasure to finally meet the two of you," he said warmly. "And many thanks for your assistance in the mission tonight."

"Thank you for your offer," Beca said sincerely. Jesse nodded in agreement. "We promise to have an answer for you as soon as possible."

They were being wordlessly escorted back to the hallway by the two blondes when Beca could no longer resist the urge to ask about Chloe.

The Professor looked hesitant to respond but eventually said, "Our resident nurse will give her a check-up in the morning. From there we will decide the next steps for her reintegration."

"Does she have special abilities, too?" Jesse asked curiously.

"That, we are not sure of yet."

They bade a final good night and farewell to the Professor, and Aubrey and Luke accompanied them back to the foyer.

"Do you guys need a ride?" asked Luke.

"Kind of, yeah. We left our bikes at the mansion," Jesse replied apologetically.

"Take the car," offered Aubrey, surprising Beca with her kindness. "And don't worry about driving it back, just press the 'Home' button... But maybe let Swanson drive on the way this time."

Aubrey and Beca exchanged smirks.

* * *

Beca expertly climbed up the wall of their apartment building, jumping from, and digging into, every bump and crack on its surface. She had done it so many times when returning home from sneaking out in the middle of the night that it felt like she was flying. After pushing herself through the window of her room, Beca shrugged off her leather jacket, pulled off her jeans, and changed into a pair of sleeping shorts.

Once she was comfortably dressed and not looking as though she had just been out, Beca unlocked the bolt on her bedroom door and walked into the living room. Her mother was asleep on the couch with the TV still on and her dinner was left half-finished on the coffee table. She was still dressed in her nurse's uniform from working the late shift at the hospital.

Knowing her mom had to be up for the day shift in a few hours, Beca switched the TV off and draped a blanket over her; she didn't want to wake her by moving her to her room. While tucking her in, Beca glanced at the bags under her mom's eyes. She couldn't remember a time in the last ten years when her mom _didn't_ have them.

As Beca lay in bed that night preparing to drift off to sleep, she contemplated accepting the scholarship at Barden.

It would certainly help her mother out. Like normal exclusive private schools, Barden offered the regular high school education on top of its 'special' one and, unlike the public high school Beca currently attended, the Institute provided, and insisted on, on-campus boarding. With Beca moved out and her meals taken care of by the school, her mom could move to a smaller place closer to the hospital and spend more time resting than commuting to work or worrying about taking care of her daughter.

As for Beca, she could finally be in a place where she could run and jump as fast and as high as she physically could without raising suspicion over how unnatural it was that a tiny teenaged girl could break the world record for a vertical leap. Moreover, she would have the chance to learn what _else_ she could do with her powers. Aubrey and Luke were clearly much more capable than they had been when they first started at Barden. Beca could only hope that it didn't take her ten years to get just as good.

And not that it mattered but seeing more of Chloe wouldn't be so bad either.


	3. Chloe

**Chapter Three: Chloe**

Much to her dismay, however, Beca wasn't able to see Chloe until after almost a week in.

She had spent the Sunday morning after their midnight excursion at the hospital, trying to convince her mother that accepting the scholarship at Barden was the best move for both of them. After making her daughter promise to visit as often as she could, the woman gave her blessing, which led to a late afternoon phone call with the institute's Professor to iron out the details of the transfer. Fortunately, the school term was just about to begin, which made things easier for everyone.

Prior to handing her mother the phone, Beca discreetly requested the 'parental ignorance' package, which was basically her way of asking the Professor not to make Beca's abilities known to her mother just yet. Knowing that many students over the years had requested the same thing, the Professor kindly obliged. And since she wasn't a particularly model student academically, Beca also convinced the Professor to disguise the scholarship as an athletic one. ("I didn't know you were on the track team," her mother had said in confusion, to which Beca replied with a lie and said she must have forgotten to tell her.)

Later that day, the mother and daughter spent the evening at the Barden Institute, unpacking Beca's things. After taking her mom out for dinner, Beca was free by the end of the night to help Jesse, who had arrived just a few hours after her, settle in.

* * *

Monday morning arrived as an unpleasant surprise for Beca, who was woken up by the shrill sound of a bell. She jumped out of bed in a panic, worried that she had fallen asleep at school but calmed down after realizing that it was indeed the case, as she was at a boarding school. Remembering that the first morning bell signaled breakfast (and that for once she had no excuse to be late on the first day of school) Beca got out of bed, groomed herself quickly, and set off for the dining hall.

As far as Beca could tell, there were less than a dozen students at Barden, including Aubrey and Luke (who seemed to be Head Girl and Boy or something, judging by the way they were able to order people around). None of the other students looked familiar to Beca, which led her to assume that they came from all corners of the country to get their 'special' education at Barden. That also probably meant that they came from the _wealthiest_ families in the country, so naturally Beca avoided them like the plague.

The students had an awkward and sleepy breakfast together (Beca still saw no sign of Chloe) before going their separate ways. Those like Beca and Jesse, who had yet to complete their high school education, received it from a string of homeschool teachers that visited the school during the day. The older students like Aubrey and Luke went to Barden University, a private college that the Professor had also helped establish, a few miles down the road from the Barden Institute.

As it was only the first day of the first week of her senior year, there was virtually nothing for Beca to do or study (not that she cared any other day of the school year anyway) so she was free to leave the estate at her lunch period.

Beca took an old skateboard she had found while clearing out her room, making a mental note to pick up her bike from the abandoned mansion, and broke a number of speeding violations on her way to her mom's new apartment. She could have gone faster but she didn't want to attract _too_ much attention.

"Beca!" her mom greeted from behind a small moving van twenty minutes later. "I wasn't expecting you to visit this soon. I just got here."

"I wasn't going to let you move in on your own, was I?" shrugged Beca, grabbing four boxes and balancing them on her deceptively skinny arms.

An hour of moving and unpacking boxes later, Beca plopped herself on a stool in her mom's new kitchen. She downed a glass of cold iced tea and almost swallowed whole one of her mom's famous chicken salad sandwiches.

"Easy there!" her mom laughed. "Funny, I would have thought an exclusive private school like Barden fed you enough."

"They do. Every meal ish, like, catered or shomefing," Beca said with a mouthful of chicken and a gratuitous eye roll, and swallowed. "But all this moving worked up my appetite and you know how much I love your food."

"Right... And speaking of Barden," her mother continued in a falsely innocent voice. "How was your first day there?"

"S'okay," shrugged Beca.

Her mother raised an eyebrow. "Just okay?"

" _Yeah_ ," emphasized Beca. Then she paused thoughtfully. "Well… okay, I guess it's pretty weird to have breakfast with your classmates. And the campus is too _posh_ to feel like an actual school. On the bright side, the teachers come and go after class so I won't ever have to deal with detention anymore."

"Uh-huh," her mother nodded slowly before saying in a mischievous tone, "So I'm guessing you haven't started your _true_ purpose there yet."

"W-what?" Beca sputtered, half of her second glass of iced tea spilling down her chin.

"Oh, come on, Becs," her mother chastised. "I've known you your entire life. Don't you think I know when you're _up to something_?"

"I'm not up to anything," came Beca's automatic response.

"Please, you've been griping about that—and I quote—'pretentious, rich-kid dump of a school' for _years_ , but when offered a scholarship, you go all the way to the hospital just to convince me to let you go?" her mother pushed. "Not to mention, you're in your senior year. Not exactly a move you'd expect from someone soon to graduate and enter college."

" _If_ I go to college—" Beca started, but was shot down by her mother's glare. She crossed her arms and rested them on the table. "Well, the Professor has connections at Barden University," she mumbled. "It could make it easier to get in if I'm already at Barden."

"But based on how you described your first day there, you couldn't care _less_ about its quality of education—or _your_ education for that matter."

Beca shrugged. She couldn't argue with that.

Her mother crossed her own arms and narrowed her eyes at Beca comically. "So it's safe to assume you have an ulterior motive for attending that school."

Beca tried to put on the most convincing look of innocence she could muster, but her mother wasn't buying it. Beca should have known better than to hide anything from her. While the woman could overlook a fake track team practice now and then, she knew not to ignore it when her daughter was going through something. Even a locked door couldn't fool her; Beca's midnight adventures, despite going unpunished, never went unnoticed.

"So, who is she?"

Beca looked up in surprise. She was worried that her mother had figured out about her special abilities and made the connection that she was all of a sudden going to Barden, a school she'd been whining about for years, to develop them.

But that didn't mean her mother was completely off base with her guess; there _was_ still the fact that a certain redhead hadn't left Beca's mind the past day and a half. But the thought of talking to her mother about an embarrassing infatuation she had with someone she just met made Beca cringe.

 _You know the drill. Deny everything._

"What ever do you mean, mo— _fine_ ," Beca grumbled after losing the stare-down with her mother. She must be losing her touch. "Her name's Chloe. And she's, uh…"

 _How the hell do I even_ begin _to explain Chloe?_

"New in town," Beca finished slowly. "And I found out she's going to Barden."

"She's _new_?" her mother said in surprise. "Wow, she must be a stunner if you're switching schools for her already."

"You have no idea." Beca reached over the counter to grab another sandwich, unaware that she had said the words out loud.

"What do you even know about this girl?" her mother asked, suspiciously but not harshly. She knew the look on her daughter's crumb-covered face well, if only because it was rarely shown, and wanted Beca to be careful. It wasn't everyday her daughter found someone good enough to pursue—let alone that person being someone she just met—what with those giant walls of hers.

"I know enough," Beca answered defiantly, knowing what her mother was thinking.

But her defense wasn't exactly solid. She _had_ just met Chloe less than 48 hours ago (her mom didn't need to know that). Aside from deducing, from the way Aubrey and Luke spoke to her, that Chloe had been locked up in the room at the abandoned mansion for quite a while, there was really nothing else Beca knew about her. Not even her last name.

 _So why is she suddenly the reason behind my life decisions?_

Cutting herself some slack, Beca reminded herself that she had made the decision to study at Barden to develop her _powers_ , not a relationship with this girl. But since she couldn't say _that_ to her mom without opening up an entirely different line of interrogation, Beca chose to play into her mother's game, even if it meant being embarrassingly honest about her feelings.

"It's just, when I first saw her I was, I don't know... paralyzed," said Beca. Goosebumps crawled over her skin from how cheesy (and truthful) she was being. "I can't explain it but I felt something inside me. Like, a connection? Telling me there's _something_ about this girl that makes me want to get to know her. When I found out she was going to Barden, I knew I was probably never going to see her again and... I couldn't let that happen."

The older Mitchell stared at her curiously out-of-character daughter. There was something different about the way Beca spoke. She decided it was a good kind of different and wondered if this Chloe person would be the one to finally take Beca out from her fortress of sarcasm and avoidance.

Meanwhile, Beca shifted uncomfortably in her seat, not liking the silence that followed her speech and the way her mother was staring at her as though she were a long lost daughter.

"Well, I hope everything goes well for you," her mother finally said with a smile. Beca breathed an internal sigh of relief and wrongly assumed her mother would drop the subject. "Whatever happens, I'm proud of you for opening your heart to love—"

"Whoa, hold up! _Love_? Nuh-uh." Beca leapt off her seat jumpily and started pacing and shaking her head vigorously. "I don't—not _love_ , Mom, that's—yeah, no."

The recipient of Beca's sputtered out string of incoherent thoughts raised an eyebrow.

"I don't _love_ Chloe, Mom," Beca clarified with a roll of her eyes. "Jeez, it's just a silly crush. Besides, I don't think this is going to go anywhere, honestly."

"You wouldn't have transferred schools if you didn't at least _hope_ it would go somewhere," her mom pointed out cheekily.

At this, Beca realized she was trapped.

 _How can I argue myself out of this if I can't tell her about my abilities?_

"Beca, honey," her mom continued gently, sensing her daughter's inner turmoil. "I know it's a touchy subject for you but I can't continue raising you to be afraid to love."

"I'm not—"

"Aren't you though? I know you've built this reputation with your friends of being 'badass' and indifferent to having feelings but you didn't used to be like that. And I..." The woman hesitated before taking the seat Beca vacated. "Look, I know we never really talked about what happened. Almost ten years have passed and I'm embarrassed to admit that even _I_ was determined to ignore it. But seeing you now, all grown up and making your own decisions, I'm realizing that I've been stupid to avoid this."

Beca stopped pacing to look at her mom seriously.

"When your dad left, it really hurt us. We were _both_ in a very dark place for a while, but I never really sat you down and talked about it as a family. I just thought that waiting long enough would make the pain go away. And because of that, I may have given you an unhealthy understanding of relationships and love, so I'm really sorry."

Beca gave an almost indistinguishable nod, though she never blamed her mom for not wanting to talk about it. She knew how much it hurt her and thought that talking about it would make it seem like it hurt her, too, and all of that emotion would only upset her mother even more. Beca just wanted her to stop hurting.

"The way you described your first encounter with Chloe—you know, I felt the same way about your dad," the older Mitchell smiled. "And I don't doubt that he felt the same way about me. It's amazing, isn't it? But along the way things change, and love _can_ change, but that doesn't diminish the value of loving. So please don't _roll your eyes_ and shrug love off like you don't really care just because you're afraid you'll get hurt, Becs. Whether it's going to be Chloe or someone else in the future, I want you to give it a chance to be something more."

If Beca were being honest, she wasn't comfortable with her mother speaking about such things. It wasn't as though the subject of relationships had never come up, but her mother had never taken it seriously enough in the past to give her a similar talking to.

Beca just wanted to roll her eyes and be facetious to clear the awkwardness, but her mother put up her hand before Beca could say or do anything.

"But what am I saying? I'm spoiling it for you," she said with a light chuckle. "You should experience this all for yourself."

Beca raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Just promise me you won't lock your heart up, sweetie," her mother said, poking Beca's chest affectionately. "There's too much good in there, I've seen it. It would be a waste not to share it with someone special."

"Whatever you say, Mom," said Beca, finally getting to do her classic eye roll.

But they both knew that Beca would take the advice to heart.

"Now go on, back to that school of yours before it gets dark," her mother said, ushering her out. "Hey, maybe you can sit beside Chloe at dinner."

Beca doubted she'd see Chloe at the table, if breakfast and lunch were any indication. But still, she looked forward to the possibility.

* * *

As expected, there was still no sign of Chloe at dinner. But there were, surprisingly, two new students: a tall brunette whose legs seemed to go on for days (no one would blame Beca for looking) and a black girl with really cool, vivid-pink hair whose plaid shirt and punk rock look Beca particularly identified with. They introduced themselves as Stacie Conrad and Cynthia Rose Adams, two friends from New York and fellow recent-enrollees at the Institute.

It was during this first dinner all together as students that Beca witnessed one of the institute's unique traditions. Apparently, it was a form of initiation at Barden to introduce yourself along with your powers, so sometime in the middle of dinner everyone had turned their attentions to the two newer students.

Offering to go first, Stacie stretched her arm all the way to the opposite end of the dining table to stab a piece of fruit with her fork. She then retracted her arm to its normal length and took a smug bite out of the pineapple slice. "And it goes without saying but I'm _really_ flexible, too," she winked.

"Wow, you should call yourself _Ela-Stacie_. Ha-ha, get it?" Jesse joked lamely, turning into the blithering idiot he always was around girls. Beca rolled her eyes but Stacie managed a laugh.

"What about you, Cynthia Rose?" asked Aubrey, turning everyone's attention to Stacie's seatmate.

"I convert objects' potential energy into kinetic energy to use them as explosives," replied Cynthia Rose with a humble bob of her head.

"Uh, what?" a stocky boy with brown hair and tiny eyes said in confusion. If Beca recalled her earlier encounter with him correctly, then his name was Bumper and he was a bit of a dunce.

Cynthia Rose took a pair of dice from the breast pocket of her shirt. She rolled them between her fingers until they glowed a dark pink, almost the same shade as her hair. Looking around for a target, she spotted a vase atop a decorative table at the end of the dining hall and threw one die at it, keeping the other tucked in her palm. Upon contact with the surface of the table, the first die emitted a small explosion and sent the vase flying into the air. With expert reflexes, Cynthia Rose threw the second die at the vase, which then shattered into a million pieces.

"That's so fucking awesome," praised Beca. Cynthia Rose gave her an appreciate grin.

Aubrey, however, was less impressed. She pursed her lips at the mess of broken ceramic pieces on the floor but didn't say anything.

"Hey, I haven't sheen yoursh yet," Bumper said through a mouthful of food, waving his fork at Beca. "Earth-boy showed us his lunch but you weren't there. Show us yours."

Surprised and embarrassed to suddenly be at the center of attention, Beca looked at Jesse for support. But he looked just as lost. "Uh," she said slowly. "I don't really know how to explain it, but the Professor called it superhuman agility or something."

"Superhuman agility?" frowned Bumper. "That's _it_? Doesn't everyone, like, have that as a secondary power?"

Beca scowled but had nothing to retort. Before the Professor had invited her and Jesse to attend Barden, she often wondered what it would be like to actually attend the school and her biggest insecurity, borne out of desperation to rationalize her feelings about Barden, was that her abilities weren't _that_ special for her to merit being there at all.

"I don't have it," Jesse piped up in Beca's defense.

"Well, _I_ do," Bumper boasted after a loud burp. "Part of being all frog-like is jumpin' around really high, but I still got my awesome tongue and croak powers besides that."

To emphasize his point, Bumper shot his long tongue out and, like Stacie, used it to grab a piece of food from the other end of the table and return it to his mouth, much to the girls' disgust.

Noticing Beca's discomfort, Luke stepped in.

"Okay, that's enough, Bumper," he said. "Beca hasn't even begun her formal training yet but I can vouch for her skills at their current level. I've no doubt she will turn out to be the most agile of us all."

Beca gave Luke a small smile as thanks. Bumper merely shrugged and continued piling on more dessert on his plate.

Soon after the incident, everyone returned to casual conversation. Luke was explaining some of the lesser-known house rules to Stacie and Cynthia Rose, while Jesse was talking to a girl, whose face and name Beca found forgettable, about her plans after graduation. Eventually Beca's gaze rested on Aubrey, who was quietly eating her dessert while eyeing the broken vase every now and then.

"Hey, Aubrey?"

The blonde dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a napkin before answering. "Yes?"

"Where's Chloe? How come she doesn't have any meals with us?"

"She'll be having private sessions and undergoing rehabilitation with the Professor for a while," replied Aubrey, lowering her voice. She hesitated for a moment before continuing. "But Charlene told me she hasn't woken up yet."

" _What?_ " Beca hissed. "It's been almost two days—isn't that a cause for alarm?"

"The doctor says it's mental exhaustion, Which isn't hard to believe considering what she must have gone through in that place."

Beca nodded, wondering what exactly Chloe had gone through.

From the look on her face, Aubrey was also concerned about the redhead. "I promise to give you an update when she wakes up," she said softly.

Beca noticed Aubrey avoiding her eyes as she said it, probably because she didn't want to seem like she was warming up to the 'unruly, undisciplined kids.' "Thanks," she smirked, pointing her fork at the corner. "In return, how about I glue together that vase you're obsessing over?"

Aubrey threw her a threatening look, which Beca dodged by digging into her dessert with a chuckle.

* * *

Three days later, on a Thursday afternoon, the new students were having their basic training supervised by Luke in the large field behind the mansion, when Aubrey reported that Chloe had finally woken up. However, according to the blonde, none of them were allowed to see her yet, since the Professor had asked for time to explain everything to Chloe and "calm her down."

"Calm her down? Is she okay?" asked Beca in concern. She was the first to approach Aubrey after finishing her ladder exercises for the umpteenth time.

"The Professor just said she needed time to adjust," responded Aubrey. "He said meeting a lot of new people might startle her, let alone people with special abilities."

"Record-breaking scores as usual, Beca," praised Luke, making a note on his clipboard as he approached the girls. "What's this about Chloe?"

"She's awake but none of us can see her," Beca answered irritably.

Luke waggled his eyebrows teasingly. " _You_ seem eager to see ginger again."

"It's nothing like that," scoffed Beca. "We broke her out of isolation at the abandoned mansion just for her to be shut up in another one? This is ridiculous!"

"The Professor said he might introduce Chloe to the rest of the students tomorrow at breakfast if she's feeling better," shrugged Aubrey. "But he said not to count on it."

"Maybe it would help if she saw _us_ ," offered Jesse, approaching them after completing his own strength exercises. "After all, we _were_ her first contact in the outside world, not the Professor."

"That's... not a bad idea," said Aubrey, looking surprised and impressed.

"Why do you sound so surprised? I'm full of it," smirked Jesse.

Aubrey raised an eyebrow.

"G-good ideas, I mean!" he clarified hastily.

The girls rolled their eyes and walked off in opposite directions—Aubrey back to the mansion, Beca to the training grounds—leaving an embarrassed Jesse with Luke laughing hysterically.

On her way back to the grounds, Beca spotted Stacie and Cynthia Rose stretching by the training dummies and nodded politely at them in greeted.

"Hey, Beca. What did Aubrey want?" Stacie asked with her head poking out from between her legs, nodding at the blonde's figure retreating into the mansion.

Beca was momentarily thrown off, surprised that someone had noticed their little meet-up. "Oh, nothing. Just checking up on us," she lied. "She's probably bored, not having anyone to boss around inside."

They shared awkward chuckles before Beca moved on.

* * *

Beca was disappointed to hear that the Professor wouldn't allow Chloe to meet her rescuers either, but was also surprised that it was because he had decided to go ahead with his plan to introduce Chloe to all the students at breakfast instead.

The entire time he spoke, Chloe stood behind him and to the side, trying (and failing) not to draw attention to herself, though Beca thought it was impossible for anyone in that room not to stare at Chloe—not because the Professor was practically making a special announcement of her presence, but because she was just _so_ beautiful. Her flaming hair and hypnotizing blue eyes, made even more pronounced by her pale-pink sweater dress, drew every pair of eyes toward her.

"Good morning, everyone," the Professor greeted the students merrily. "I would like to introduce you all to Miss Chloe Beale, another new student we'll be having at the Barden Institute this year."

 _Beale? I wonder if her family knows she's here._

"She was rescued by your fellow students a few nights ago, from a facility that was trying to suppress her powers by modifying her memories of them," continued the Professor, taking on a more serious tone. "As you all know, one of the missions of this Institution is to…"

While the Professor went on about helping all kinds of people with special abilities, Beca fought mightily to make eye contact with Chloe, but the redhead kept her eyes down, self-consciously avoiding everyone's staring ones. In the middle of the Professor's poetic segment about the history of the Institute, Beca grew desperate enough to let her fork fall on her plate with a moderately loud clang.

When Chloe saw the source of the noise, her face lit up instantly and she smiled. She then noticed Jesse, Aubrey, and Luke sitting around Beca and smiled at them, too. They all returned it just as happily, and Aubrey even gave her a small wave. The air in the dining hall suddenly seemed much lighter. A cloud in the sky had moved aside to let the sun flood the room with a soft warmth.

"…So I hope you all understand Chloe's delicate situation and would do anything to make her stay here at Barden an enjoyable experience," the Professor concluded, after explaining that Chloe was here primarily to recuperate her memories and may not exhibit any special ability at first, or ever.

A collective "Yes, Professor" rang through the dining hall.

"Good!" The Professor bounced on the balls of his feet. "Well, I have a business meeting to attend. Luke, Aubrey," he nodded at the two blondes, "you have Fridays free, right? Do you mind keeping Chloe company while she has breakfast?"

The two nodded eagerly and Beca wondered if she could stay behind, too.

"The rest of you, off to class or whatever," said the Professor, waving his arms dismissively just as the bell rang. He then put his hand on Chloe's shoulder and took her aside to have a brief conversation.

Everyone except Beca, Aubrey, and Luke dragged their chairs back, rose from their seats, and dispersed. Beca turned to Aubrey but before she could open her mouth—

"Get to class, Beca," Aubrey said knowingly.

"But we want to catch up with Chloe, too!" Jesse protested from beside Beca. Apparently he hadn't gotten up either.

"Don't you two have your first Physics test in first period?" asked Luke.

Beca groaned. "Oh, come on, it's just a stupid test! Chloe—"

"—will still be here when you get out of class," finished Aubrey firmly. "Your education is still the most important thing at this _school_."

Grumbling, Beca grabbed her bag from between her legs and swung it over her shoulder. However, she made sure that she and Jesse passed Chloe on their way out of the dining hall.

"Hey!" they greeted the redhead.

"Hi!" beamed Chloe. "So, apparently I've been asleep the past five days…"

"Yeah," breathed Beca. She didn't know how it was possible, but Chloe looked even more beautiful in the daylight; the white room had given her an almost ethereal look, but being on the outside really showed off her natural beauty. Beca cleared her dry throat and said, "Listen, we really want to catch up with you. Maybe we can see each other after we get out of class?"

Chloe bobbed her head. "I look forward to it!"

"Cool, see you later, Chloe!" said Jesse. He adjusted the strap of his backpack and jerked his thumb toward the hallway. "Come on, Becs, we're gonna be late."

"Yeah, coming... See ya, Red!" Beca called, just before disappearing into the corridor, hoping that Chloe remembered her nickname.

Judging by the giggle she heard as she turned the corner, Chloe remembered.

* * *

"What the _hell_ was that test?" Jesse groaned fifty minutes later. "I don't remember studying any of _that_."

Even Beca, who had a somewhat devil-may-care attitude when it came to studying, had to admit that it was surprising for her to be unable to answer anything at all on that test. Even if she hadn't been distracted by thoughts of Chloe, she liked to believe that she would have gotten at least one question.

Suddenly, Luke's head popped out of the corner of the hallway. "Physics test too hard?" he chuckled.

"More like impossible," complained Jesse.

"Well, it _is_ Honors Physics."

"Wait— _Honors_ Physics?"

"Yeah, didn't you guys sign up for that?"

"No! Who told you—?"

"Guys, whatever!" yelled Beca, breaking up the meaningless conversation—when would she ever need Physics anyway? "How's Chloe? Is she with Aubrey?"

Luke's face turned apologetic and Beca feared the worst. "Chloe had to leave as soon as she finished her breakfast. Charlene escorted her back to her room, saying something about getting ready for another session when the Professor gets back."

"Aww," said Jesse, looking crestfallen.

"But she said… did she say anything about planning to meet _us_ after class?" asked Beca, gesturing at herself and at Jesse.

Luke frowned and shook his head.

"Huh…" Beca couldn't help feeling hurt. Chloe seemed excited about it... but could that just have been her imagination? "Well, what did you guys talk about?"

"Very little," admitted Luke. "She doesn't remember the night we broke her out of the abandoned mansion, only that the four of us burst into her room."

 _That's odd. She remembered her nickname, didn't she?_

"She remembers waking up yesterday and speaking to the Professor," Luke continued to list. "She told us why she's here and where she's been. Pretty much the same things the Professor told us so far."

"That's disappointing," pouted Jesse.

 _That's suspicious_ , Beca thought. _First they don't want us talking to Chloe, and then they claim she has nothing new to say?_

Something was going on but Beca couldn't be sure if Luke and Aubrey were in on it or not. She had to keep her cool and finesse the situation if hoped to get any answers. Maybe she could confront Chloe herself.

"Hey, Luke, where _is_ Chloe's room anyway? You know, the one you brought her to that night," Beca added, in case he pretended not to know.

"A few doors down from the Professor's," he answered. "But she's not there anymore, the Professor had Charlene move her somewhere else the day after. We don't know where her room is now."

"How can you _not_ know? Don't you keep track of every room in this mansion?" asked Beca, her tone getting icier by the second.

Luke raised an eyebrow. "Okay, let me rephrase that: we don't know where her room is _exactly_ because it's in the restricted wing where the Professor keeps his personal things."

That was a poor choice of words on Luke's part.

"But Chloe's not _his personal thing_!" Beca burst out angrily. "She doesn't deserve to be locked up, and I'm sick of having this conversation with you and Aubrey just saying that the Professor knows what's best—I don't give a _shit_ about what the Professor wants, okay? I care about whether Chloe is being treated fucking _humanely_! Jesus Christ, he's going to be giving her _private_ sessions? What the fuck!"

 _So much for keeping my cool._

Jesse looked between Beca and Luke with apprehension as Luke regarded Beca with a serious expression that had no trace of anger or caution. But seeing him put up a stoic expression against her ranting only made Beca angrier.

"I understand your frustration, Beca," Luke said calmly. "Believe me, Aubrey and I are asking the same questions you are—Aubrey _especially_. She just won't admit that she doesn't know, or rather, that we know just as little as you do."

Beca sensed he had more to say so she held back her retort.

"I know this all very confusing and suspicious, and I know you hate this answer but what else can I say? Aubrey and I have known the Professor for ten years—that's half of our lives. And although he's never done anything like _this_ before," admitted Luke, "he has also never hurt us or given us any reason to distrust him. He also gave us a _home_ , Beca, when he didn't really have to."

Beca knew that Luke was referring to the surprising fact that, despite heading an institution aimed at teaching and developing people with special abilities, the Professor himself had none. He had personally requested the President to bestow him the responsibility of setting up the institute since he had the resources and genuine interest in the cause.

"And don't think we haven't tried reaching out to him about Chloe," continued Luke. "But he only tells us to wait until things with her have calmed down. He says it's for Chloe's and our own good, and honestly, I believe him."

Beca considered what Luke was telling her, essentially asking her to trust them blindly. But then she recalled her dinner conversation with Aubrey and seeing genuine concern in her eyes when they talked about Chloe, and she and Luke looked as happy as Beca did when they saw Chloe again that morning. They had given Beca no reason to doubt their intentions but was it possible that the Professor was hiding something from them, too?

Beca looked up to see Luke waiting patiently for her reply. "I get that you guys are loyal to the Professor and you trust him," she said. "But me, not so much. If I find out that he has hurt, or plans to hurt, Chloe in _any_ way, I'm taking her away from here."

 _Big words. Big promises._

"And if that should happen, we'll be right behind you," assured Luke, placing a friendly hand on Beca's shoulder. "In support, of course, not to chase you down or anything."

The corners of Beca's mouth twitched upward. The Brit had a humorous but sincere glint in his eye, lifting the tension instantly.

Unlike Aubrey's, Luke's first impression on Beca was not at all sour. Though he was often with Aubrey during the times she would catch Beca and Jesse in the act of delinquency, Luke had always stayed back and laughed at their antics. He had even defended Beca more than once when Aubrey became too harsh. So, in an odd way, even though they had only recently been on official speaking terms, Luke was already like the permissive older brother Beca never had.

"Great, we're all friends again!" Jesse threw his arms around both their shoulders and nodded down the hallway. "Now can Beca and I get back to class? We're _kinda_ late for English."

"Oh. Right."

* * *

Beca had more trouble sleeping that night than usual. Whenever she closed her eyes she imagined Chloe being strapped to some sort of brainwashing machine that painfully erased (or pieced back) her memory, but even when she opened her them, the images still lingered until she fell back asleep. Left with no choice, she cycled through sleeping and jerking herself awake for a couple of hours, until eventually she could see the signs of the sun rising on the horizon and decided to just give up trying to sleep.

Beca walked over to her window and was surprised to see none other than the girl haunting her dreams standing at the top of the stone steps that led down to the gardens. Wearing the white dress she wore when they first met, Chloe was talking to the Professor's raven-haired assistant, Charlene. Beca saw Charlene nod kindly before turning her back to Chloe and returning to the mansion, then Chloe took a deep breath and descended the stone steps slowly, looking around as though she were soaking everything in.

 _Letting her out at dawn on Saturday, when every teenager this side of the planet is asleep? Smart._

Beca didn't want to waste any time changing so she just grabbed the jacket draped across her desk chair and put it on. Forgoing the front door, Beca climbed out of her window and down the wall, being careful not to make too much noise. Once she arrived at the garden, Beca decided not to spoil Chloe's garden exploration too soon, so she trailed behind the redhead quietly until, around a quarter of an hour later, Chloe sat down on a wooden bench under a big flowering tree.

Beca gave it another few minutes before approaching. "Uh, hey," she greeted nervously.

Chloe turned in surprise. "Hey, you," she greeted with a small smile.

Beca walked, her cold hands buried deep in her pockets, over to the wooden bench. Wordlessly, Chloe scooted over and Beca took it as a signal to join her. She sat a respectable distance away from Chloe. Moments passed yet none of them had spoken a word since their greetings. Beca's mind was working overtime trying to think of something to say, given that Chloe had completely blown her and Jesse off the day before.

When Beca had turned her head to finally ask, "How are you?" she noticed that Chloe was staring straight up at the sky. The expression on her face was mostly blank with a hint of mild curiosity. The fact that Chloe didn't seem to acknowledge the last time they met with an apology made Beca worry that maybe Chloe was giving her a hint.

 _Of course she's ignoring you right now,_ a voice in Beca's head that seemed to have existed only since puberty panicked. _Can't you see she's trying to avoid you?_

Beca was about to mumble an apology and an excuse to leave when Chloe finally spoke.

"Nature is really beautiful."

In spite of her crumbling self-esteem, Beca followed Chloe's line of sight to a bluebird perched on the branch of a flowering tree directly above them. It _was_ a beautiful bird, but Beca couldn't help thinking its blue plumage couldn't hold a candle to Chloe's eyes.

"And colorful," added Chloe, finally looking down to smile at Beca.

 _Maybe she really did just forget,_ Beca thought. Maybe short-term memory loss was a side effect of the memory modification sessions she apparently underwent at the abandoned mansion.

Beca realized she had been staring at Chloe for the better part of a minute and choked out the first thing she could think of. "Must be a nice change from all that white back in your old room, huh?" was what Beca ended up saying, and she immediately cursed herself for saying something so insensitive.

But Chloe, although a little surprised at her comment, still giggled. "That's true," she nodded.

Beca saw this as an opportunity to keep the conversation going—in a different direction. "Is this your first time outside?"

"Yes," Chloe replied with a slight frown. "The Professor asked me to stay inside until my memory's a little better. We've started mental therapy but I don't know what he wants me to remember exactly, besides at one point having some sort of special ability. But I can't remember what I can't remember, can I?"

Beca scowled. She remembered Luke saying that Chloe didn't remember the night they broke her out, but Beca wanted to see for herself. "The whole point of us getting you out of that mansion was for you to be free to experience the outside world, not to be locked up again and re-learn your powers."

Chloe smiled at Beca once again. "Thank you for that, by the way, it was a really exciting night. But really, it's okay. The Professor said that while I'm still recovering I'm allowed to go out once in a while to take a breather, stretch my legs. I never would have had the opportunity back in that old mansion so I'm not complaining."

"But still," insisted Beca, making a mental note that Chloe _did_ remember that night. "Your freedom shouldn't be restricted at all. You can't just be holed up in a room taking lessons with the Professor alone."

"I've been alone for as long as I can clearly remember, I _think_ I'm used to it by now," Chloe replied, a little tongue-in-cheek.

Beca bit back a laugh and asked, "But don't you _want_ to be out more?"

"I think I do," Chloe answered slowly. "I've been inside for so long… I'm not really sure. But having a few trips outside is okay, if it's for the best. Maybe the Professor just wants me to pace myself before returning back to normal society. It has been quite a while."

"Maybe," shrugged Beca. "But I still wish he'd let you out more. I kind of want to see you. We all do."

Chloe looked down, avoiding Beca's eyes. "To be perfectly honest, I was worried… that you guys might think I was a freak and that maybe you would want to stay away."

"What?!" Beca cried, causing the bluebird to fly away in surprise.

 _How could anyone not want to be around you?_

"Chloe," she continued in a softer tone. "We're in a school for people with _superhuman_ abilities. I think we're pretty much all freaks here."

Chloe shook her head. "But it's different. _I'm_ different. I don't know _what_ my powers are, or were, only that they must have been really terrible if someone thought I should be locked up and have them removed…"

Chloe looked so upset that Beca found she had nothing to say. She wasn't very good at dealing with emotions, particularly sad ones. In fact, she had learned that it was best not to deal with them at all because they only made things harder. When her dad abandoned her and her mother, Beca turned the hurt into anger, and the anger into indifference. (It helped that her mother didn't want to talk about it either, at that time.) Years of practice made it easy for Beca to automatically brush off things that upset her. But now, faced with Chloe's sadness, she wasn't the one hurting this time; she was the one who needed to provide comfort. Beca had never done it before so she did what she thought was best and put her hand on Chloe's shoulder.

"Hey," she said in an awkward but gentle voice. "I'm here, aren't I? I'm not running away. I don't care about what your powers were, I just care about—"

 _You._

Beca gulped. She didn't feel ready, nor that it was appropriate, to admit that to someone she barely knew. Even if it was the truth. "My point is that no matter what you did, I would never want to stay away from you."

 _Okay, maybe that was little stalker-ish_.

But instead of getting creeped out, Chloe looked at Beca—and oddly to Beca it felt like she was _really_ looking at her, as though she were seeing her for the first time and recognizing that she was there. It reminded Beca of a video she once saw of an Alzheimer's patient having a lucid moment, a moment of sudden clarity. And even more odd was that Beca felt like she was seeing Chloe for the first time, too. She couldn't explain it, but it felt like seeing the _real_ Chloe, not the Chloe they had rescued from the abandoned mansion, and not the Chloe that the Professor was intent on keeping behind locked doors, but the actual, human Chloe.

 _That's messed up,_ she thought. _Isn't this the same Chloe you helped that night? Was_ she _not human?_

"Why?" Chloe asked, in a voice so soft that it almost didn't sound like a question.

"I honestly don't know," replied Beca with a small chuckle, not taking her eyes off Chloe. "I just, for some reason, feel like… I want to make you happy."

Beca hoped that Chloe understood her intentions in a non-romantic way, because although she couldn't for the life of her explain why, Beca _genuinely_ wanted Chloe to be happy. What she did _not_ want was to confuse her with her own stupid, confusing feelings.

"Thank you," smiled Chloe. "I sometimes forget what it's like to be happy. You're very sweet to care."

"Didn't you say you were happy back at the mansion?"

"Yes, but I realize now that that was from memories of my childhood," she said slowly. "I could see them but I couldn't really _feel_ happiness from my memories. I'm sorry, I know it doesn't make sense."

"Don't apologize," Beca said hastily. "Uh, what _do_ you remember?"

Chloe looked at her curiously. "What do you mean?"

"Tell me a happy memory. Maybe talking about it will trigger something."

"Uhm." Chloe bit her lip in a thoughtful expression. "Okay. There was this one time I was walking through a park with my parents. I was really young, maybe five or six. There was a strong wind, and the flowers and leaves from the trees started falling. We danced around, laughing and trying to gather as much as flowers as we could in our hands… It was beautiful, like a scene in a movie."

Beca studied Chloe's expression carefully. It was true; Chloe was able to describe her happy memory, but it didn't make her smile or make her eyes glint. When Chloe finished her story, she looked at Beca and gave a small shrug. "It's _exactly_ like a scene from a movie: I can see myself _being_ happy," she said. "But I'm not happy right now, am I?"

Beca nodded reluctantly and felt a wave of sympathy for Chloe and a wave of anger toward the bastards running the abandoned mansion facility, who messed up Chloe's mind so much she couldn't even feel anything real.

 _Real_.

Beca looked up at the tree and had an idea.

"Stay here, I wanna try something," she told Chloe before swinging both feet onto the bench and standing up. Pushing one foot off the bench's backrest to propel herself up, Beca jumped ten feet into the air and grabbed on to a low-hanging branch. She pulled herself up and walked the length of the branch until she reached a better spot to continue climbing upward.

"What are you doing?" called Chloe, standing up to keep an eye on Beca.

"Stay there!" Beca called back. Once high enough, she planted her feet firmly into a thick branch and hopped up and down gently. When she wasn't getting the results she wanted, Beca full on jumped and put her whole body into shaking the flowers off the branch. A timely and helpful gust of wind blew, and the tree's white flowers finally fell like rain. Beca stopped jumping to look down, and was not disappointed.

Chloe had her mouth open in awe, her eyes wide and shining and occasionally flashing white as they reflected the falling petals. She cupped her hands together, catching two handfuls of flowers and petals before tossing them into the air again. Beca heard genuine laughter and considered her mission a success. Chloe was definitely _feeling_ happy, all right.

Feeling as light as the flowers themselves, Beca jumped down from the branch—which was a good thirty feet from the ground—and glided through the white rain before landing gracefully beside Chloe. "Are you happy now?" she asked, gathering a handful of the still-falling flowers and tossing them playfully at Chloe.

"Yes!" she laughed. "This is amazing!"

The wind returned and somehow the flowers began circling the two of them. Beca wondered briefly if they were standing at the eye of a soon-to-be tornado, but didn't care; Chloe's happiness was incredibly contagious. Seeing Chloe twist and turn her head, following the movement of the flowers and laughing, made Beca's heart race. It wasn't the first time she saw Chloe's smile nor was it the first time she heard Chloe's giggle, but none of the previous instances felt as pure and genuine as Chloe's smile and laughter now.

 _This is the real Chloe. The Chloe before she got her memories taken away. I can feel it._

Eventually, the wind died down and the flowery rain stopped. Chloe took a step closer to Beca, her face slightly pink from all the excitement and laughter. "Uh-oh," she giggled, looking up. "Looks like you made the tree go bald."

Beca glanced up half-heartedly for a second before turning back to Chloe. "What do you mean _I_ made the tree go bald? This was all _your_ fault," she teased, her grin getting even wider.

"Ha! Good luck trying to convince anyone of that, Miss I-Can-Climb-Trees-Like-It's-Nobody's-Business!"

"Hey, _you're_ the one with flowers in her hair," Beca smirked, plucking a stray flower from her own jacket and tucking it in Chloe's hair above her left ear. "There, guilty as charged."

Chloe laughed and gave her an "Oh, you" look. Beca shrugged her shoulders innocently. They continued to stare at each other in comfortable silence until they silently agreed to start walking back to the mansion together.

"Thank you," said Chloe after a while. "I wish there were some way I could return the favor."

"Don't worry about it. It's no big deal."

"But it is," Chloe insisted, bumping her shoulder playfully against Beca's. "You made me _feel_ happy for the first time since I can remember. I have to do something to pay you back."

"Okay then," said Beca, stopping to face Chloe seriously. "How about you come find me the next time you're free from the Professor? We can hang out. Do more happy things."

"Deal," smiled Chloe.

Beca nodded, hoping that this time Chloe wouldn't go back on her word at the last minute (or forget, she still wasn't sure what happened). Beca had already turned around when she felt a quick, gentle kiss on her cheek. Beca turned in surprise but Chloe kept walking.

"Come on, Charlene is probably wondering where I am," Chloe said, avoiding eye contact with the blushing brunette.

It was fortunate for Beca that Chloe had gone ahead. With no one looking, Beca was free to let her giddiest grin grace her face.

* * *

A/N: Here's to those who act like fools around their crushes. The next chapter makes up for the lack of action in this one.


	4. I Feel So Close To You

**Chapter Four: I Feel So Close To You**

Chloe returned to the mansion's parlor, where Charlene was patiently waiting for her, while Beca scaled the east wall to return to her bedroom where she slept happily until noon, feeling more at peace than when she had awoken. Not surprisingly, the images that wove in and out of her subconscious were those of Chloe dancing under the shower of petals.

When the midday sun got too uncomfortably warm for her to bear, Beca pushed herself out of bed and strolled into the dining hall in the middle of everyone's lunch. Despite her lateness, there were a still number of empty seats, which told Beca that she wasn't the only one who decided to sleep in for the weekend. Aubrey, Jesse, and Luke, however, were not one of those people. Sitting at her usual place at the head of the table was Aubrey, with Jesse and Luke on either side of her, arguing about which the better 80's movie was, _The Breakfast Club_ or _St. Elmo's Fire._

"Hey!" Jesse greeted when he spot Beca approaching. "Wow! Good morning, Miss Sunshine!"

Luke chuckled and even Aubrey couldn't hold back an amused smirk.

"What?" asked Beca, clueless.

"What's got you all smiley today, Becs?"

"Oh." It was only then that Beca realized that the corners of her mouth were upturned and her cheeks were beginning to ache; she must have been smiling nonstop since waking up. Not wanting to reveal the reason why, she just shrugged it off and said, "I'm always happy when I wake up to food."

Three pairs of eyes watched her closely as she walked over to the buffet table and piled food onto her tray. The table was set against the large windows that, like her bedroom's, faced the gardens. Beca couldn't stop herself from smiling again when she saw that a few of the fallen flowers had made their way to the stone steps.

"Seriously, dude, you're freaking me out," said Jesse. "You're not normally this _happy_."

"Shut up." Beca rolled her eyes, taking the seat beside him and getting started on her lunch. Partly out of curiosity and partly to get Jesse off her back, she turned to the older two and asked, "So what do you guys do for fun around here during the weekends?"

Luke paused to swallow before answering, "What normal people do on weekends: chill out, do homework, or train. Sometimes we go out of town. Last year I had this mate from India and we tried to get a cricket team going on but not enough were interested. Aubrey here," Luke jerked his thumb toward the blonde, "tried to start all-female a cappella group but nobody wanted—"

"I'll join!" Jesse sputtered eagerly.

"What part of ' _all-female_ a cappella' did you not understand?" asked Aubrey with a bemused expression.

To save himself from answering, Jesse lowered his head and shoved a forkful of food into his big mouth. Beca rolled her eyes again, as she always did when Jesse was being an idiot, and turned back to Luke. "Hang on, you said you had a friend from India, and he's—unless I've been blind the past week—not here anymore? So you can actually _leave_ this place?"

"Well, yeah," said Luke as though it were obvious. "You can't stay here all your life. Most people come to Barden to learn to control their powers. Once you have, it's your choice to stay or to leave."

"Luke and I choose to stay," explained Aubrey, "to take over teaching the younger students and to develop our powers further with the Professor's help. He is, after all, on the forefront of that experiment."

"We've actually had several people go through Barden, it just doesn't look like it because they often leave after a year or two," Luke shrugged. "We've also been rejected a number of times by kids who could _already_ control their powers, or simply didn't find it too much of a bother."

"There are people like that?" asked Jesse.

Aubrey nodded. "Few are lucky enough to discover special abilities that are attuned to their everyday activities; for instance, athletes with super speed or super strength. Years of discipline and training have allowed them to control their powers at an earlier age, even if they didn't know they were special."

"Also, not everyone's powers are as glamorous as other's," added Luke. "We've seen some as simple as being able to change the color of objects, to something as pointless as being able to grow hair at an extremely fast rate. Not exactly abilities you'd want to go to a special school to train for."

"Huh..." Beca nodded and turned back to her plate. She felt slightly comforted by the fact that her powers weren't the worst on the spectrum of possibilities.

They resumed eating in silence until Aubrey cleared her throat. "Beca?"

"Yes?" answered Beca, mimicking the blonde's tone when the situation was reversed a few nights ago.

"Luke told me what you said yesterday."

"Oh." Beca swallowed. "Look, I'm sorry—"

"Don't be. I understand what the situation looks like and I just wanted to assure you that we," she pointed a Luke and herself, "are keeping our eyes and ears open. We... we care about Chloe's safety just as much as you do, you know."

The tips of Beca's ears turned red.

 _I guess I_ may _have overreacted a bit yesterday. I seriously have to find my chill when it comes to this crush._

"Thanks," she mumbled sheepishly.

Aubrey nodded and finished her drink. She was just about to get up when Beca remembered something else about the night they rescued Chloe. "Oh, hey. Any news on what those creatures were? At the mansion, the ones that attacked us?"

"We told the Professor about them the morning after we brought Chloe in," said Luke. "He said he'll do the research and let us know."

"So far, he has nothing to report," said Aubrey. Seeing Beca's expression she added, "The Professor's a very busy man, Beca. As you know, being the headmaster of Barden is not his only occupation. I'll try to get the information myself when I can."

"Thanks. And again—sorry. I swear I'm not trying to be a pain in the—"

"Beca, stop. You're only asking for the same things we are," Aubrey said with a rare smile. And with that, she left the dining hall.

"So… cricket anyone?" Luke asked eagerly after a pause.

Beca and Jesse exchanged looks before shaking their heads in unison.

* * *

Even though Chloe's kiss was enough to get Beca through the weekend without seeing Chloe again, Beca was still glad to have a distraction from the redhead's absence: her first ever training simulation was scheduled on Thursday afternoon with Jesse. Since they had inadvertently taken part in an actual mission already, Luke deemed the two ready enough to take the test a month earlier than normal, and Thursday was the perfect schedule for the students since it was followed by a long weekend holiday; they wouldn't need to worry about missing class if they incurred any injuries.

"Good afternoon and welcome to your first cooperative training simulation," Luke's voice greeted them from the speakers near the control center. "Your mission: rescue the thirty-seven individuals trapped in the burning building. Please note that you will not only be graded by your success, but also by the way you handle the mission in its entirety. Well, then, it's a beautiful day to save simulated lives. Good luck!"

The metal doors in front of Beca and Jesse opened and Beca immediately felt a wave of heat blow over her. A five-story building was on fire in front of them but they were, for a moment, too much in awe to care. The simulated environment even included fake roads, trees, and other surroundings. It was easy to forget that they were in a giant metal box underneath the mansion.

"I wonder where the fire department is," muttered Beca sarcastically, eyeing the building unconcernedly. "Jesse, scan the locations of every target, and surround the building with a cushion of soil, please."

Jesse tapped the keys on a high-tech tablet they had been trained to use throughout the past two weeks at the school. Beca knew that the older blondes were expecting them to barge, gung-ho, into the fray on their first training simulation, but Beca wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of being right. In fact, she had already come up with an unorthodox strategy that would certainly get them points for creativity. While the computer completed the scan, Jesse manipulated earth surrounding the building, crushing it into five-foot tall piles of relatively soft, powdery soil. The strength exercises he had been doing with Luke had greatly improved Jesse's ability and range, which made him very happy.

"What about locating the source of the fire?" Jesse suggested when done, returning to the tablet.

"Yeah, sure." Beca stretched her arms and legs lazily.

 _Luke only said to rescue the people trapped in the building._

"Scan reads: five on the ground floor, ten each on floors two to four, and the last two on five," reported Jesse. "Electrical fire. Hazard points on every floor."

"Tsk, tsk. No one remembered to unplug their vibrators."

"We could do without the jokes, Mitchell," came Aubrey's harsh voice from mission control.

"Roger that," Beca winked at the patch of sky from where she knew Aubrey was watching them. "All right, Jesse, let's get these people out. You start rescuing from the bottom up, I'll work top down."

Without waiting for a response, Beca ran toward the building and leapt over the soil easily. When she was close enough, she felt the walls with the back of her hand—warm, but not scorching—and began her climb to the fifth floor balcony; even before she began training, her ability to scale buildings with ease was no surprise. Peering through the windows, Beca found the two simulated targets crouched on the floor nearby.

"That's convenient," she shrugged, reaching her arm in and helping one, then the second, out onto the balcony with her. "Now jump."

"I-it's five floors—"

"Yeah, so?"

Deciding not to wait for Luke to program a response, Beca gave the two rescuees an encouraging push off the balcony. She looked over the railing to see if they had landed safely on the pile of dirt, and gave them two thumbs up when they did. Then she leapt down to a fourth floor's balcony. No windows were open this time so Beca had to kick one down to get in.

Just as the glass broke on her shoe, the sudden access to oxygen caused the flames inside to surge toward the window, which Beca dodged just in time.

"Huh," she breathed.

"You okay, Beca?" asked Luke.

"Uh, yeah. I thought I just…" It may have been the adrenaline playing tricks on her mind, but Beca thought she had actually _pushed_ the flames away from her.

"Do you need medical attention?" asked Aubrey.

"No, no," assured Beca, snapping out of her daze. "I'm good. Proceeding with the mission."

"Okay."

Beca and Jesse continued clearing the building until all thirty-seven individuals were out and safe from the fire. Jesse pressed a button on his watch to signal the end of the mission.

"Simulation complete," a computerized voice sounded. After a few seconds, it gave the verdict. "Time: one hour and twelve minutes. Grade: C+."

" _What?_ "

The burning building environment dissolved back into the large metallic training room. Beca and Jesse rushed to the mission control room to confront the blondes about their score.

"Hey, what gives?" whined Jesse. "We saved everyone, why the hell did we only get a C+?"

"Yes, you did save everyone," commented Aubrey, bringing up the stats on the computer. "But you also failed to completely extinguish the fire—"

"That wasn't part of the mission objective!"

"—failed to avoid twelve minor burn injuries on your targets," continued Aubrey, ignoring Beca's outburst. "And _caused_ two sets of broken ribs from a five-story fall." Aubrey glared at Beca on the last one.

Beca threw her hands up in exasperation. "I'd at least give us a B."

"I don't give the grades," shrugged Aubrey.

Jesse narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Luke. "Did you give us a C+ to make me look bad in front of Aubrey?"

"I don't give the grades either, mate," chuckled Luke good-naturedly.

Jesse kept his eyes narrowed. "Oh, it's on, pal," he muttered so softly that Luke couldn't hear it.

"What?"

"Seriously," interrupted Beca, "this simulation is rigged—we deserved a better score than that. Plus, containing the fire was _not_ part of the mission."

"I told you it wasn't just about saving the thirty-seven," Luke reminded her patiently.

"You might think these tests are scored on team efficiency and how well you use your ability in the given situation. _B_ _ut,_ going beyond what is asked and being aware of the external circumstances are important measures of success as well," said Aubrey. "Leaving the area _before_ the fire was contained without even waiting for the fire department to arrive was a pretty dangerous mistake."

"Still, a C+?" grumbled Beca. Normally she didn't give a damn about her grades, but this wasn't regular school and Beca was particularly proud of how she handled the mission… except for the part about leaving the fire. "We have superhuman agility and earth manipulation going for us. _How_ did we not handle the situation in the best way possible given our abilities?"

Aubrey merely shrugged and made her way to the door.

"You manipulate electricity and Luke controls metal!" Beca continued to yell after her. "How could you two have done better in a _burning_ building?"

Aubrey paused with her hand on the doorknob. "We didn't. We got a D."

* * *

After they all had a laugh over making Beca and Jesse's first training simulation the one Aubrey and Luke had nearly failed, they agreed to meet up at the campus' indoor pool to cool down. They had the whole weekend to do their other hobbies but, with most of the students still having classes, they wouldn't get another opportunity to have the pool all to themselves.

Beca was pleasantly surprised to find that, in the two weeks she'd been at Barden, Aubrey wasn't as insufferable as she had expected her to be. Beca got to see that, while Aubrey was indeed uptight and overly critical, it was mostly when it came to anyone using his or her powers recklessly or unnecessarily, since she took her job as Head Girl very seriously. It was also why Aubrey was so irritated with her at them that night at the old abandoned mansion; Beca sort of had a reputation of using her superhuman agility for less than moral purposes. Beca still loved to get on Aubrey's nerves occasionally, but nowadays she has learned to know where to draw the line.

As for Luke, Beca saw that his relaxed and carefree but disciplined manner made him the perfect older brother figure for _all_ the students at Barden. She grew to look up to him when it came to combat training, and she appreciated that he would always give her feedback on how to improve.

Despite their difference in personalities, Aubrey and Luke seemed to both share the same care and concern for everyone at Barden. Beca soon came to understand that what made Barden a home wasn't the institute itself but, frankly, Aubrey and Luke. Being the first ever students, they pretty much knew everything about life at the institute and about having special powers, so they were attuned to all of their needs. It shouldn't have come as a surprise when Beca came to actually consider the two as her friends.

Beca arrived at the pool first, after carelessly changing into modest swim shorts and a tankini top. While waiting for the others, she decided to lie on one of the beach chairs and flip through a nearby magazine about sailboats. Jesse and Luke arrived together a few minutes later, still bickering about movies, and for once, Jesse's outfit didn't make Beca roll her eyes.

But Luke's certainly did.

While Jesse was wearing ordinary, _loose_ swimming shorts and a towel draped over his shoulder, Luke was sporting a hideously orange Hawaiian shirt and tight black Speedos.

 _No wonder Jesse looks so smug_ , Beca mused. _He isn't the biggest dork in the room for once._

Then Aubrey walked into the room next, wearing a black bikini top and matching shorts, with a beach bag on her arm. She had her hair tied up in a ponytail and was smiling widely. Beca grinned at her, having never seen the blonde looking so casual.

"Guess who decided to join us?" Aubrey said in a singsong voice. She stepped to the side and revealed a shy Chloe in a navy blue one-piece swimsuit she had borrowed from Aubrey. Beca's jaw dropped—and she wasn't even ashamed to admit it because, _damn._ If she had thought Chloe was gorgeous before...

The dark color of the swimsuit contrasted well with her skin (now a light peach compared to pale two weeks ago) and she had her hair up in a messy bun with a few lose strands framing her face. The way she looked bathed in the light of the sunset did things to Beca she couldn't explain.

"You both look very beautiful," Luke greeted them smoothly.

With one look at him, Aubrey threw her head back and laughed at his shirt. Even Chloe hid a giggle behind her hand. Feeling gravity pull her toward them, Beca got up from her chair on the farther end of the pool and approached them.

"Oh, there you are—I mean, you're looking pretty good, too, Becs," teased Jesse. She rolled her eyes and punched him on the shoulder.

"Hi, Chloe," Beca greeted the redhead, trying hard not to smile too widely or look too excited. "I'm glad you're here."

"I promised I'd find you when I'm free, didn't I?" Chloe winked and Beca swore her heart stopped beating.

"Come on, let's get this party started!" cheered Jesse, attempting to lure Aubrey and Luke away to give Beca and Chloe some alone time, like the great wingman he was. "So, Aubrey, what's up with Luke's shirt, huh?"

Luke raised his eyebrows. "What? Hawaiian shirts are coming back in fashion."

Aubrey crinkled her nose. "They never were _in_ fashion, Lukey."

Jesse scowled at the pet name. "Even if it were, I don't think you're pulling it off, _Luke_."

The Brit shrugged. "Fine," he said, pointing a remote to the sound system in the corner. "I guess I'll just— _take—it—off_!" He began unbuttoning his shirt seductively to the music. Beca spared a glance at the commotion and was sufficiently impressed by the British boy's chest and abdominal muscles. With the hideous shirt completely off, Luke in the black Speedo didn't look so bad, especially since it highlighted what ought to be highlighted.

"And the chess match continues," Jesse grumbled through gritted teeth.

Even Beca had to laugh and catcall when Luke twirled his discarded shirt over his head and thrust his hips to the music.

"All right, all right!" interrupted Jesse in the middle of Aubrey's wolf-whistle, manually lowering the volume of the stereo. "How about we put on some _better_ music… uh, Becs, some help?"

Beca sighed and turned back to Chloe to ask for a minute to set up the music.

"Sure—oh, wait!"

Beca turned around.

"You, er, you have _soot_ on your face," observed Chloe, squinting at Beca's face. "Where on earth have you been?"

Hearing sniggers from behind her and realizing that she had been literally ashen faced since the training simulation, Beca called out while violently rubbing her face, "Thanks a lot, guys. _Real mature._ "

Chloe gave a tinkling laugh. "Here, let me." She brought the corner of her towel to Beca's face and gently rubbed her soot-covered cheek.

The feeling of the soft towel and Chloe's hand against her, their skin only separated by less than an inch of cloth, sent shivers down Beca's spine. She could feel the heat rushing to her cheeks and her eyelids droop.

 _I could stay like this forever…_

Beca blinked. Chloe was smiling at her, with both hands behind her back and clearly _not_ on the sides of Beca's face anymore. The brunette cleared her throat awkwardly and mumbled, "Thanks."

Jesse was smirking when she finally got over to him by the stereo.

* * *

As the evening progressed, their small cool-down attracted more and more students, until eventually it escalated into a full-on house party. Luke had taken charge of the pool bar, where he was serving drinks to the over-21s and punch to the rest. Jesse had lit up the grill and was preparing a variety of grilled meats and vegetables for dinner with the help of the resident cook. Aubrey was, not surprisingly, scanning the room every now and then to keep the party in check and make sure that no one underage was drinking. But otherwise, she seemed to be having fun socializing with the other students.

That left Beca in charge of the music. Though sitting by the sound system all night with her laptop sounded like a drag, on this particular night she wouldn't have minded since Chloe was sitting with her the entire time.

"Are you sure you don't want to mingle with the others?" Beca asked her. "Tell you what, I'll queue up a set and then we can leave."

Chloe replied with a grin and a shrug, "Whatever you want. I just like talking to you."

Beca smiled. When she was confident that her lineup would sustain the energy of the party, she took Chloe by the hand and led her to a less noisy and less crowded spot to continue their conversation. They mostly kept things light, in keeping with the party's mood. They didn't touch on Chloe's private lessons with the Professor, even though Beca had really wanted to ask, because she thought that Chloe deserved to have fun for once. Since it was Chloe's first party in God knows how many years, Beca told her about what the youths were into these days (with much sarcasm, derision, and eye rolling on her part), while Chloe would recount more memories from her childhood.

"So you're starting to remember more stuff then?" asked Beca.

Chloe nodded. "I'm even starting to remember awful things about the beginning of puberty," she laughed, scrunching her face in embarrassment.

"I can't wait to hear all about it."

Beca was having such a good time with Chloe, learning about both the fun and awkward times in her life. She didn't want the night to ever end.

"What about you?" Chloe asked, after recounting a story of how she and her mother got escorted out of a theater for booing too loudly at the movie. "Any fun childhood memories?"

Beca hesitated. The last thing she wanted to do was be rude to Chloe, but she also never talked about her childhood with _anyone_. If Jesse only hadn't been present during it, she wouldn't have told him either and no one would know if Beca Mitchell even _had_ a childhood.

"Um, it wasn't very happy," she confessed. "I wouldn't want to bum you out."

Chloe nodded understandingly.

"We probably had very different experiences growing up," she continued. She didn't want to talk about it, but she wanted Chloe to understand. "Yours was happy. Yours had, well, a whole family."

Chloe looked Beca in the eyes. "And yours didn't?"

"My dad walked out on us when I was eight," Beca said matter-of-factly. "No note. No good-byes."

This was always how she responded to questions like this: straight to the point and unemotional. This was what turning hurt into anger and anger into indifference looked like.

"Then... how about a time before that?"

Beca opened her mouth to automatically say "It's okay" but shut it when the words "I'm sorry" never came out of Chloe's. She wasn't expecting a question; usually when people found out about her family situation they offered sympathy or hypotheses as to why her father had left. Only Chloe had asked to look to a time before that, so Beca didn't really have an answer ready. She considered the question seriously.

"Hmm."

In her mind, Beca revisited life before her dad left, and tried to look past the pain she had been avoiding for so many years. It was easy; she was an expert in ignoring them anyway. When she found the older memories, they felt comfortingly familiar—like meeting an old friend and picking up where you left off. Out of all that she remembered, Beca decided to play it safe and chose a memory that didn't involve either of her parents.

"Okay, I got one," Beca announced, adjusting her sitting position to face Chloe. "This was in first grade, and we had one of those class trips to the zoo. I wasn't, um, a very _obedient_ kid—" Chloe giggled at Beca's proud confession. "—so I strayed from the group about five minutes in. I ended up at the aviary, where I saw this zookeeper holding a bird in her hands. She saw me alone but was nice enough not to take me back to our teacher. Instead, she asked me if I wanted to help fix the bird's broken wing and I said 'hell yeah!' So I held the bird while she bandaged him up. Then she told me that it was a sparrow, and that he was new at the zoo so nobody had named him yet—"

"She let you name the bird?" gasped Chloe excitedly.

"Yup! Guess what I named him?"

"What?"

"Jack," laughed Beca. "Jack the Sparrow. And that was way before those pirate movies so I had no idea—"

"Jack," repeated Chloe distantly. "My dad's name was Jack."

Chloe had told Beca stories of both her parents but she never mentioned their names. And judging by the look on Chloe's face, she was only remembering now and was upset for forgetting her own father's name.

"Uh, that's cool," Beca said with an attempt at being cheerful. "Funny coincidence, huh?"

The crowd of partying young adults suddenly fell silent and someone turned down the volume of the stereo. Beca and Chloe turned to where everyone was looking and saw that the Professor had turned up at the doors, with Charlene dutifully behind him.

"Sorry to interrupt your party, kids!" he said jovially. "I'm just here to fetch Chloe."

Beca's heart sank but Chloe was already putting her yellow cup down and rising from her seat. Beca felt the instinctive urge to grab her wrist but saw no point in doing that. Chloe stood up on her own, so it wasn't her place to tell Chloe what she should or shouldn't do.

From across the room, seeing that neither of the two was going to object, Aubrey stepped forward. "Please, Professor," she said. "Let Chloe at least stay for dinner; we were just about to start. You can join us, too, if you'd like. Besides, it's a holiday tomorrow—you could both use a break."

The Professor looked thoughtfully between Aubrey, Chloe, and the comically frozen party scene in front of him. He scratched his chin a few times before nodding. "I suppose I see no harm in that," he said. "Have fun with your friends tonight, Chloe. We can meet tomorrow at 9AM sharp." Then he turned to Aubrey. "Thank you for your invitation, Aubrey, but now that my schedule's freed up I think I'll take on Mr. Wang's offer for a breakfast meeting. Could you please arrange that for me, Charlene?"

His raven-haired assistant nodded curtly. Seconds later, Charlene was speaking Mandarin into her phone with her back turned to them while the Professor gave Aubrey final farewell points.

"I trust you'll keep the party from getting out of control," he was saying.

"Yes, sir. No underage drinking and it'll be over by 2AM at the latest."

"Oh, you can let them have just a little. They're supervised by the strictest twenty-one-year-olds I know!" he laughed, waving to Luke at the bar. His proclamation injected life back into the party; the small crowd of students yelled a chorus of "Cheers, Professor!" and the music started up again.

Chloe sat back down and grinned at Beca. "Looks like you're stuck with me."

"Just when I thought I've had enough of you," the brunette joked in reply.

* * *

Dinner was soon served, which gave Beca and Chloe the opportunity to mingle with the other students. Beca chatted with Cynthia Rose about life in the Big Apple was like while Chloe thanked Aubrey for sticking up for her and learned more about how the regular students' trainings went.

The rest of the night went surprisingly well for an impromptu party: Beca amused everyone by having a burger-eating contest against Bumper, _and winning_. ("I've been training half my life for this," said Beca, high-fiving Jesse, who, in her opinion, made the best burgers in the world.) Jesse and Luke had started a tag-team beer pong match, with Jesse and Chloe against Luke and Beca; the girls tossed the ball while the boys drank. Luke and Beca eventually won and Jesse accused Beca of using her powers. She asked how agility could have helped her win at beer pong, to which he responded with a loud belch.

Someone had inevitably yelled "Shots!" at some point of time in the night, so Beca and Chloe both had their first ever shot, laughing at each other wince as the alcohol burned their throats. Some of the older (and braver) students played a variation of spin-the-bottle involving the spinner doing something wild (and often suggestive) to whomever the bottle pointed to. Beca covered Chloe's eyes playfully when Stacie was made to do a body shot off of Aubrey, but Chloe grabbed her hands and pulled them down.

While Chloe watched in open-mouthed amusement, Beca was very conscious of the fact that Chloe hadn't released her hands, but was holding them against her body. From her place slightly behind Chloe, it was almost as though Beca were hugging her. Beca tried her best not to imagine what it would feel like to tighten her arms around Chloe, pull her close, inhale her sweet scent, and kiss her neck—but of course she failed to.

Loud cheers snapped Beca out of her daydream and Chloe twisted around—still keeping a hold on Beca's hands. "I want to dance with you," she said mischievously as the next track came on. It was Beca's own upbeat remix of Calvin Harris' _Feel So Close_.

Beca's eyebrows shot up in surprise and confusion. It was an unusual request, since Beca had not approached the dance floor at all the entire night. The only evidence Beca gave of knowing how to move her body to music was the occasional head bob and foot tap.

"I—I don't dance."

"Oh, come on," said Chloe, dragging her by the wrist. " _Everyone_ dances!"

Beca allowed herself to be dragged—not that she could refuse Chloe any day of the week—but, for luck, she snatched the shot Cynthia Rose was about to take and threw it down her throat, hoping it would lower her inhibitions and make the imminent act of dancing more bearable. Out of the corner of her eye, Beca saw Jesse sniggering as she obediently followed Chloe to the dance floor.

"Jesse told you I hate dancing, didn't he?"

Instead of answering, Chloe grabbed Beca's other hand and spun her, forcing the tiny brunette to face her on the dance floor.

' _I feel so close to you right now.'_

If Beca had ever imagined dancing with Chloe at a party, the scene would not have gone like _this_. Later on Beca would realized that, having been secluded from society throughout her adolescence, Chloe obviously hadn't picked up on the modern day grindfest. _Not that that's what I want her to do,_ Beca's thoughts added hastily. If anything, Chloe's style was very old school.

"Nice moves, Red," Beca laughed as Chloe did some sort of swing dance with a twist.

"My parents were really into dancing in the 80's. Come on!"

' _There's no stopping us right now.'_

"How do you even know this song?" Beca yelled over the music getting louder as it approached the drop.

"Do I live under a rock?" Chloe rolled her eyes. "I have a radio in my room. Now _dance_!"

Beca laughed at the irony of her statement and gave in, actually ending up having a good time dancing with Chloe. She didn't feel self-conscious about their silly dance moves because everyone else had joined in and, more importantly, seeing Chloe having fun was the only thing Beca wanted to be conscious of.

Eventually, the party gradually wound down. Most of the other students had either gone back to their rooms or paired up to have a deep conversation in some corner. It had gotten chilly as the night wore on so the girls had covered up in ponchos and the guys had put on shirts—hideous orange Hawaiian ones included.

Beca, Chloe, Aubrey, Luke, and Jesse were themselves winding down at the sitting area near the hot tub. Aubrey was sitting between Jesse and Luke on the sofa, while Beca and Chloe shared a large wicker armchair. Beca tried not to think too much about how close she was to Chloe, and how their slightly damp (from swimming) skin glued them together.

"So, Aubrey," Jesse was saying with an air of nonchalance. "How long have you and Luke been going out?"

The pair of blondes exchanged slightly exasperated looks. "We're not dating," clarified Aubrey, as though it were a question often asked.

"Mm-hmm," Jesse hummed in a high-pitched tone. "And Luke, what's your say on that?"

"Well, I've known Aubrey for almost ten years. If I had wanted to date her I would have done something about it already," shrugged Luke. "A girl like Aubrey doesn't come around too often so _someone_ should really make his move before he loses his chance."

Beca smirked and Chloe giggled at Luke's obvious hint but Jesse only narrowed his eyes suspiciously, thinking it was a trick. Aubrey rolled her eyes and made an effort to get up. "Come on, it's time to clean up," she said. Chloe stifled a yawn behind her hand. "Not you, Chlo. Get your butt in bed, you still have to meet the Professor in a few hours."

The redhead nodded sleepily and stretched her limbs once she had gotten off Beca's lap. Beca had started helping Aubrey gather stray cups and plates when Chloe held out her hand. "Walk me to my room?" she asked with an irresistible tilt of her head.

Beca's heart raced at the invitation and thrust the dinnerware into Jesse's hands. Without sparing the others another glance, she took Chloe's hand and followed her out the door, but not before yelling, "I'll be right back!" over her shoulder.

"No, you won't!" Jesse yelled after her but they were long gone.

* * *

Chloe was practically skipping through the hallway, tugging Beca along with her by their joined hands.

"You don't look very tired to me," laughed Beca. When Chloe merely smiled mischievously back at her, she gaped in surprise. "Wait a second, did you _fake_ a yawn just so you could get out of cleaning?"

"Hmm, maybe."

"Oh, you wily… minx."

Chloe raised an eyebrow. "I got you out, too, didn't I?"

Beca paused. "Yeah, all right."

They finally arrived at the grand wooden doors that Beca remembered led to an antechamber that in turn led to the Professor's quarters. If this was where Chloe was staying, then Beca suspected that there were more rooms back there besides the Professor's office and bedroom. _Probably his other personal things,_ Beca thought grimly.

"So… this is me," said Chloe, turning to face Beca and leaning her back against the doors.

"Yup," Beca replied awkwardly. "I... I had fun tonight. Hanging out with you."

"Me, too. Thanks for teaching me all about everything I've missed." Chloe smiled then bit her lip nervously.

"Anytime," mumbled Beca, her eyes trailing down to Chloe's lips before catching herself and clearing her throat. "Well, I guess it's good night then."

If Beca hadn't been too focused on kicking herself for being too awkward, she would have noticed the flash of disappointment on Chloe's face.

"Good night," Chloe whispered, slowly turning to face the door.

Beca felt time slow down as Chloe twisted the doorknob and at that moment, Luke's words echoed in her head, in her own voice. ' _A girl like_ her _doesn't come around too often, either._ You _should make your move before you lose your chance.'_

Before she could form a sentence in her mind, Beca blurted out, "Chloe, wait—can I... can I kiss you goodnight?"

 _If your 'move' is making her realize how pathetic and desperate you are, you totally nailed it._

Kicking herself was too lenient a punishment this time. But instead of the look of surprise and painful embarrassment that Beca expected to see, Chloe let out a huge sigh of relief. "Thank _God._ I was wondering how many hints a girl had to drop."

It was Chloe's honest and charming, girl-next-door response to Beca's awkwardness that sealed the deal. Beca was officially, now and forever, head over heels for her. In that moment, she split-secondly processed the entire night—getting to know more about Chloe, having the most fun she ever had at a party _with_ her, and ultimately her small but significant gesture to erase Beca's insecurities—and truly felt like she was (dare she say it?) in love with this beautiful girl.

Beca closed the distance between them in two strides. She looked into those mesmerizing baby blue eyes (wide in surprise at Beca's speed but excited nonetheless) before dropping down to her lips. The kiss was innocent enough, with Beca's lips only softly grazing Chloe's before the redhead leaned closer and deepened it. Beca's spine tingled at how perfectly they fit together. There was no awkward positioning or hasty pushing between the two of them. Beca pulled Chloe closer by the waist.

Although it didn't feel like it, the kiss was in reality quite short; they pulled back at the same time and rested their foreheads together. After sufficiently breathing each other in and smiling like idiots, they bade each other good night.

* * *

A/N: Credits to Dr. Shepherd and the writers of _Grey's Anatomy_ for the line, "It's a beautiful day to save lives."

Also, I apologize; I didn't realize the action in this chapter was brief and only in the first act when I wrote the previous author's note. But nothing's really happening (yet) so Beca has to settle with easy training simulations for the time being.

It's not relevant but this fic follows the movies' timeline so this would be set in 2011, the year before Beca entered Barden, hence the Calvin Harris song that was popular that year.

Author's Commentary: This chapter was quite fun for me to write because not only does it have Bechloe (!) in it, but it also showed that the characters are still relatively young and live relatively normal lives, all things considered. Also, I never stay long at parties but I imagine this is what constitutes a successful one? Haha.


	5. Calm Before the Storm

**Chapter Five: Calm Before the Storm**

The next few weeks were the best in Beca's life, perhaps due to the fact that Chloe was doing a lot better memory-wise, thus giving the Professor little reason to keep her secured and away from everyone else. On their first meeting after the night of the party, Chloe had greeted Beca with a kiss on the cheek and immediately laced her fingers with Beca's. It happened so easily and so comfortably that Beca didn't care to overthink it (much to her own surprise).

Soon enough, it was pretty much an unspoken fact at the Barden Institute that Beca Mitchell was sort-of-kinda-maybe-definitely dating Chloe Beale. No one had any jealous objections to it since it was clear to everyone that Beca pretty much had Chloe in her sights since the moment they met. Whenever they found themselves both free from classes or trainings, Beca and Chloe would often saunter off to the gardens for a stroll, or to the greenhouses where Chloe had taken up gardening, or to Beca's room to listen to her mixes, or to the kitchens for an afternoon of impromptu baking.

All of these activities were initiated by Chloe, of course, and poor Beca could only indulge her girlfriend's wishes. Jesse would tease her about being whipped as cream but, if Beca were being honest, Chloe had never asked her to do something she truly didn't want to do. There simply had just been no one with whom Beca would want to do these things until she met Chloe. Because of that, Beca thought she may have finally understood what her mother had said about opening her heart to someone. Only it felt less like opening it up than _having_ it opened by one Chloe Beale.

Beca could feel it. She felt it whenever she had her arms wrapped around Chloe as they casually shared a chair when hanging out with their friends, laughing at yet another instance of Luke outsmarting or outshining Jesse at something in front of Aubrey. She felt it whenever she'd wake up earlier than Chloe did (a rare occasion, usually preceded by Chloe getting into a TV show marathon before bed), spending a few uninterrupted minutes in pure admiration at the girl curled up in her arms. She felt it whenever she shared a kiss with her, no matter how brief or how intense it was.

Without doing anything besides just being herself, Chloe got Beca to fall in love. It was effortless on both ends.

* * *

Another reason Beca was having the time of her life at Barden was that she had finally discovered her latent powers. The day after the training simulation, Luke had been reviewing the video recordings when he noticed something unusual with the way Beca had dodged the flames. He showed Beca and the Professor the tapes and they deduced that her true power, which had yet to reveal itself, was either fire-related or air-related. The Professor had believed it was more on the latter, since Beca recounted how it often felt like flying whenever she would exhibit her superhuman agility, and they quickly decided to pursue that in her training. Luke adjusted her daily regimen to include breathing exercises and stances to facilitate the development of her latent air powers, which quite annoyed Beca.

"This is _boring_ ," she would whine after the first minute of every new breathing exercise. When Aubrey or Luke wouldn't humor her, she would whistle, sending a jet of air at their face from ten feet away. It was a trick she had learned once she internalized that she had a special connection with the wind and air.

"I would've thought someone who controlled air would be less impatient," Aubrey had grumbled while fixing her messed up hair.

"The wand chooses the wizard…" Luke had replied with a shrug.

After Beca had been whipped into shape (thanks to Aubrey asking Chloe for help), Beca was able to properly manipulate the air around her to help her jump higher and sustain flight for a few minutes. She had also learned to create small spheres of concentrated air and other minor air-related techniques. But, as Beca pointed out irritably, none were even slightly formidable in a one-on-one fight, so Luke had given her a book on the Chinese martial art, _Baguazhang_ , to study its fighting techniques and use it as a way to turn air into a worthy combat weapon.

"That's your homework for the weekend," Luke had said. "We start trying out the moves on Monday."

* * *

It was now a cloudy Sunday afternoon in mid November and Beca was lying comfortably on her bed. Having spent Saturday playing touch football with Jesse, Bumper, and Stacie (you could imagine the amount of cheating that occurred) she was supposed to be cramming her homework but instead Beca had her head comfortably snuggled into the crook of Chloe's neck, her arm draped over her girlfriend's waist, and the _Baguazhang_ book lying open to the Table of Contents between her feet.

"Becaaa," sang Chloe. "We're supposed to be studying."

Chloe had a thick Social Studies textbook standing open on her abdomen. On the Professor's recommendation, she was studying to take the GED tests now that she had adjusted to normalcy. While there had still been no progress with her special abilities, he had told Chloe that she could pursue a college degree at the University next year and remain at the institute to continue trying.

Beca groaned lightly. "But I'm _so_ comfortable…"

" _I'm_ comfortable, do you see me napping the day away?"

Beca rolled over to turn away from Chloe to be face to face with the framed picture of her giving Chloe a piggyback ride in the garden. "Look how cute we are together." Normally, Beca would rather swallow a caterpillar than be caught using the word 'cute' but the picture really deserved it. Beca was scowling, pretending that she hated their photo being taken, but her eyes betrayed how she truly felt, especially with Chloe leaning over to plant a kiss on her jaw.

"Yes, we are. Now, come on. Get up." Chloe poked Beca's side.

"Ow!"

With a resigned sigh, Beca reached down between her feet to grab the book. She turned and propped herself up on her elbows with the book open between them. She flipped to the first chapter and, seeing the first paragraph, let out another groan. "I don't get why they have to use so many Chinese words," she complained.

"Maybe because it's a _Chinese_ martial art?" replied Chloe without looking up from her reviewer.

Beca squinted her eyes. "I'm starting to not like that my sarcasm is rubbing off on you, Red."

"You _asked_ Luke how to turn air into a combat skill. You really shouldn't be complaining," Chloe said calmly, turning a page.

Beca tilted her head up to glare at her but ended up admiring the way Chloe looked while studying, with her brow slightly furrowed and her jaw moving up and down as she chewed on her tongue.

"Stop looking at me like that," Chloe said after a while, still not looking up from the book.

"Like what?"

"Like you want to kiss me."

"I do want to kiss you."

Chloe put her book down on her chest and finally made eye contact. "Who's stopping you?"

Beca leaned over and planted a soft kiss on Chloe's lips. Chloe went back to studying without a word, but with a smile on her face.

"For the record, I always want to kiss you," said Beca, turning back to her own required reading.

"Even if I had mustard on my lip?" She knew Beca hated mustard.

"I don't know why you would but yeah, even then," smirked Beca. "Tissue has already been invented, just FYI."

Chloe responded by shaking her head amusedly and motioning Beca to start studying seriously. Beca turned to her own book and sighed. There was no way she was going to finish reading all of it by tomorrow. If only there were a way to receive and understand information more quickly and in a more entertaining way.

 _Oh, wait. There is!_

Beca jumped off the bed and got her laptop from the desk. She did a quick YouTube search on Baguazhang and decided to just learn from mimicking their movements. After browsing through some how-to videos, she started with one that seemed to be stepping carefully in a circular pattern.

"Beca? What are you doing?"

"Hm?" Beca stopped mid-circle. She must have looked pretty funny to Chloe, walking around in a circle for the past five minutes. "Oh, you know, just getting a practical demonstration on this baggy-shang stuff."

" _Baguazhang_ ," corrected Chloe patiently, getting off the bed and walking over. "It kinda looks like dancing."

Beca huffed. "All the more reason for me not to get it."

"Come on, I'll do it with you."

After many videos and unnecessary comments from Beca ("I really can't see myself doing this" and "Do I have to wear those baggy pajamas, too?"), they got the basic form down right. And by the time the dinner bell rang, Beca was focused enough to create an air swipe that literally swept Chloe off her feet. Beca was by her side at once and caught her a millisecond before she hit the ground.

"I'm so sorry!" she gasped. "I didn't expect—"

"No, this is great!" Chloe cheered excitedly, wrapping her arms around Beca's neck. "I'm really proud of you!" Then she pulled back with a frown and said, "But you took so long to get serious about it so now I'm also _really_ hungry."

* * *

Beca woke up the next day feeling confident that she could pass whatever demonstration test Luke had prepared for her that afternoon. But, like anyone who has ever tried to take the easy way out, she was sorely mistaken. Waiting for her at the training grounds was a collection of large wooden panels arranged irregularly within a circular platform, each panel about ten feet tall with traditional-looking Chinese markings on them.

"What the—?"

"Becky! You're here," greeted Luke. "Check out these things, huh?"

"What _are_ they?" Beca asked, choosing to ignore Luke's nickname for her.

"They're called the spinning gates," he explained. "I had them installed over the weekend. They're supposed to teach you the fundamentals of aerokinesis."

"Aerokinesis?"

"It's what I'm calling your ability to manipulate air."

"And what do I do to these… spinning gates?"

"You're supposed to get through the platform without hitting them," said Luke, pressing a button that caused the 'gates' to start spinning.

"Seems easy enough," muttered Beca to herself. She cautiously stepped closer and timed her entry. Superhumanly quick as she was, Beca only managed to get through the first gate before being smacked from behind by another one. And since the gates didn't stop spinning, she pinball-ed through many gates before being thrown out on her ass.

"Fucking hell," she cursed, rubbing her sore behind.

"Try again," said Luke. "Remember, use the principles of Baguazhang."

 _How? These fucking things are spinning too fast and guys in the video were so slow!_

"Right..." Beca tried again using brute force but was kicked out faster than her first try. She wondered if blowing the gates completely off the platform counted, but she knew it probably didn't.

She tried again and again until Luke finally said, "You didn't read the book, did you?"

Getting up from the ground for the umpteenth time, Beca admitted, "No. I watched some videos on YouTube and copied their movements."

Luke sighed. "That's not _understanding_ the principles, Beca. The key to this exercise was to learn to switch directions at a moment's notice when faced with resistance. You have to _flow_ with the movement of the gates."

" _You_ do it then, if you know so much about it," Beca said irritably.

"I can't. I'm just telling you what the old lady who sold me the thing told me," shrugged Luke. "Maybe I should get her to teach you—"

"Luke! Beca!"

They both turned to see Aubrey calling them from the pathway that led back to the mansion.

"The Professor wants to meet us immediately," she called to them.

"Is something wrong?" Beca asked in concern, using her aerokinesis to get to Aubrey in a second and deliberately leaving Luke in her dust.

"No, nothing's wrong," answered Aubrey with an excited glint in her eye. "He has a mission for us."

"Finally!" cheered Luke, having caught up.

* * *

They arrived at the antechamber to see Jesse and Cynthia Rose already there with the Professor. "Good, we're all here," he said in greeting, rubbing his hands together. "Well, I'll go through this quickly since I have to rush to a meeting. I'm sending the four of you on a recon mission—"

"I'm sorry, Professor, the _four_ of us?" interrupted Jesse, taking a quick head count. "There are five of us here, sir."

"Oh, silly me." The man pressed a palm to his forehead. "I forgot to mention Aubrey will not be joining you in this mission."

Mouths dropped. "But Professor—!"

"I need Aubrey to stay here and look after things while Charlene and I are gone," the Professor explained.

"But—" began Luke but Aubrey cut him off.

"It's okay, Luke," she said. "We have responsibilities as Heads."

Luke gave her a look before nodding slowly.

"But if I'm not going, why am I here, sir?" Aubrey asked.

"You're still an important part of the team," said the Professor. "So you need to be informed of the mission. It's quite a simple one actually, only there is a lot we don't know about the environment, which is why I need the best of the best on detail." He nodded at all of them. "As I said, this will be a recon mission... and the area is the old abandoned mansion where Chloe was found."

Everyone stood on alert at that information.

"If you may recall—and Ms. Adams I am informing you of this now—the four of you encountered some dark creatures at the mansion. This morning I received news that the same creatures had appeared at a residential neighborhood about three miles from there," he said grimly. "I want you to investigate the building again, to determine whether the source of these creatures is indeed the mansion itself. If not, I'd like you to investigate the neighborhood. Do not attempt to engage any of the creatures if you can help it, but do try to capture one so we can study its nature in the safety of our campus."

The Professor let the information sink in before adding, "Also, I hope I don't have to remind you all to be careful and to have each other's backs throughout the mission."

Everyone nodded seriously.

"All right." He checked his watch. "Get into gear, everyone. I'll be seeing you for a mission report when I get back tomorrow evening. Good luck."

With those final words, the Professor retreated into his office and the students turned to each other. Luke was still looking at Aubrey and as soon as the Professor was gone he placed an arm around her shoulder consolingly. "You'll be at the next one, Bree, I'll make sure of it."

For once, Jesse didn't comment about their display of affection. He, too, was upset and disappointed that Aubrey wouldn't be with them. The Professor had always selected Luke and Aubrey for his missions, even though most of them in the past only involved hunting down potential students. The first mission that got slightly dangerous was rescuing Chloe from the mansion, of which Beca and Jesse had also taken part. So Aubrey not being present at the second one felt a bit incomplete.

"Don't worry about me," she said with a small smile. "I'll be fine here. I can continue my research and maybe find something to help you. _I_ should be the one worrying—you better take care of yourselves over there."

"We will," promised Beca. "We'll see you when we get back, okay?"

They all bid her good bye and headed to the basement where they kept the gear they were instructed to wear. After ruining her shirt in the first mission, Aubrey had asked the Professor to commission a more combat-appropriate uniform. Pulling the strings he had, the Professor delivered superbly. A week ago, a shipment of custom-made high-tech suits, impenetrable to most weapons, resistant to most elements, and equipped with a built-in communication device, arrived. There were just enough for all four of them and they all managed to fit perfectly.

"Let's go, team," Luke said once they were all suited and pumped up.

* * *

Aubrey remained in the antechamber, processing her feelings, for a while after the others left. She was disappointed not because she felt left out of their second mission, but because she was feeling _useless_. The new mission was a reminder that it had been almost three months since the first. Chloe was doing a lot better mentally and although her friends made an effort to act as normally as they could for her sake, they were still nowhere near close to figuring out Chloe's past, finding her parents, or re-discovering her powers.

Beca herself had slowly given up trying to find out more. Ever since she was convinced that the sessions with the Professor were actually helping Chloe get her memories back, she had stopped being overly suspicious of him. But it seemed like Chloe did _not_ want to find out about her parents either, since memories of them were gradually becoming emotionally and literally painful for Chloe to remember. They were all worried about what they might discover at the end of it, when she would remember up to the point she was locked in the white room, and Beca wanted to protect Chloe from that, which to her meant dropping the effort altogether.

But Aubrey felt that Chloe deserved to know more, which was why she had looked forward to any new creature sightings. Since neither the Professor nor her own research had yielded any results, this was exactly the kind of mission that Aubrey wanted to take part in. Her research had been a bust at every turn and it didn't help that she couldn't exactly _name_ the things that attacked them. She just keyed in a string of words like 'humanoid creatures,' 'red claws,' and 'helmet' in multiple esoteric libraries to no avail.

Aubrey frowned, thinking about the keywords she had used and wondered what the keywords _the Professor_ had used. She knew the man preferred to do his research manually through books, so she went into his office where the nearest computer was and accessed the Barden library's database, which kept records on books found in the small academic library at the Institute as well as those at the University. She looked for the 'Recently Checked-Out' books and searched for any that the Professor might have checked out.

"Damn it," she muttered. The record showed that the last time the Professor checked out a book was six months ago. He wasn't even looking.

 _Or maybe he decided to finally do a digital search_.

Aubrey pulled up the office computer's search history. Thoughts of privacy went out the window, since she knew the Professor had a separate personal computer and one in his office was still technically public. "Nothing but flight and hotel searches," she mumbled, guessing that Charlene used this often when the Professor had impromptu meetings across the country.

Aubrey sighed. She was still stuck, still waiting for the Professor, and still doing absolutely nothing useful. She was about to shut the computer down when she noticed the blinking light of a flash drive still connected to it. Out of an obsessive habit, she brought up Finder to eject it, but the window opened to its contents and she recognized them as a series of surveillance footage.

She hesitated, knowing that viewing these was _definitely_ an invasion of privacy. The only reason she was familiar with the file names was because Charlene had once asked for her help in backing-up a hard drive filled with past surveillance footage. (That was before the Professor decided to hire an actual IT company to do their computer work instead of getting his overworked personal assistant to do it.)

Aubrey had just decided to leave the computer and flash drive as she had found them when curiosity got the best of her. The highlighted video was of surveillance footage almost three months ago. Aubrey checked the calendar and confirmed that it was the day after they had rescued Chloe. When she clicked on it twice, the media player popped up instantly, showing that the video had already been queued for viewing. It was clearly a clip of the Professor's office. He was sitting right where Aubrey was currently sitting, and across the desk from him was a blonde, stately woman, looking to be in her late thirties or early forties.

Aubrey took a deep breath and hit the play button.

* * *

"Everything seems normal," observed Beca as she stepped out of the passenger's seat of Luke's car. They had parked right in front of the abandoned mansion's gate this time, instead of a couple of blocks away.

"Maybe they only appear at night?" suggested Jesse. "What time did the Professor say they appeared at the residential neighborhood?"

"He didn't," answered Luke as Beca pushed the gates open.

Nothing much had changed since the last time they were there, only the front garden looked more overgrown.

"So the Professor just sends us out on missions without prior information?" Cynthia Rose asked tentatively. All Barden students were been told that such excursions were possible and that they were free to decline if ever they'd be asked to go on a mission, but she didn't.

"Pretty much," Beca shrugged, taking one step inside the garden.

The second her foot touched the ground, the familiar spheres of dark energy materialized and released the same helmeted, red-clawed creatures. Only this time, there were twice as many.

"Looks like they've been expecting us," Luke said as they got in position. "Remember—aim for their hearts!"

Beca leapt into the air to avoid a creature charging at her. "They're still up to the same old tricks!" she observed. "This oughta be easier!" Landing gracefully on the ground, Beca made the sweeping move she did the night before that knocked Chloe off her feet. It worked, sending a few creatures flying and crashing against the brick wall.

On her left, Beca saw Jesse in his usual fighting stance—fists raised and one foot in front of the other—sending "punches" of rock flying at the creatures. Suddenly getting an idea, Beca tried lifting a rock with her aerokinesis but discovered that it was too heavy to control properly.

"Beca, focus on the mission! Don't try experimenting with your powers _now_ ," chastised Luke, who had already turned his entire body into metal and was crushing the head of a creature that had crept up behind Beca.

"Right," replied a frustrated Beca. Her aerokinesis still wasn't proving very combat-ready.

Meanwhile, Cynthia Rose was doing well by herself, flicking three playing cards in rapid succession straight into the chests of three creatures. The cards flashed pink before exploding along with the creatures, whose disintegrating bodies released shiny hearts in the process. Once the garden was cleared, they proceeded inside the mansion, to the foyer where they were met with more creatures.

One of them, however, was drastically different.

"What the hell is _that_?" gasped Jesse.

They could tell that the new creature was of the same nature as the others because it wore the a similar helmet and had the exact same crossed-heart symbol on its armor. The difference was that this new creature was _huge_. It had a large, spherical body and stood at about seven feet tall. Instead of claws it had normal (albeit enormous) hands. While they were distracted soaking in its massive form, the giant smacked its round stomach cockily and began charging straight at them.

"Split up!" commanded Luke.

The four ran in opposite directions and the large creature ended up not hitting anything. It looked left and right in confusion and turned around, spotting Cynthia Rose.

"Don't even think about it, buddy!" she growled, throwing four cards in succession at the large creature's chest. But the card trick didn't work this time. The explosions didn't even seem to harm the creature.

"Fuck!" she cursed, as one of the smaller creatures crashed into her side causing her to fall painfully.

"Cynthia Rose!"

Jesse swung his fist in an uppercut motion, which caused the ground beside his fallen teammate to surge upward and squash the creature against the ceiling. He was too distracted by this to notice another of the smaller creatures swipe at his arm.

"Argh!" he yelled in pain; the claws had made a rather deep cut in his arm.

Hearing her best friend's painful cry made Beca look over in panic. She was too far to help but there were still some pieces of wood left behind from the wreckage they had caused during their first visit. She grabbed one with a sharp end and, with the help of a Baguazhang move she learned on YouTube, spun in a circle and thrust the stick with pinpoint accuracy straight through the offending creature's chest.

Beca flew (or rather, propelled herself through the air with a gust of wind) away just in time to avoid another charge by the larger creature.

"New plan!" yelled Luke. "Get rid of the smaller one first! Dodge the large one's attacks, and then we can surround him!"

They did as ordered, making quick work of the clawing creatures until it was only the four of them against the giant. They surrounded the creature on four sides. Its body was so large that Beca couldn't see beyond it. "Let's teach this fat ass a lesson!" she cried out to psyche the team up.

The large creature raised its fists, bent down slightly, and—

"It can _jump?!_ "

The giant's massive body and crushing weight created a shockwave upon landing that caused the four of them to fly back about twenty feet. Beca had quickly recovered in mid-air so she became the creature's first target once it had gotten back on its feet.

"Come on!" Beca taunted, running straight into its path. Just before the head-on collision, Beca leapt into the air—being extra careful to kick its metal-covered head at the height of the arc—and landed behind the creature. It had fallen forward from Beca's kick and that was how she noticed that its back lacked any protective material whatsoever. She turned toward Cynthia Rose, who had just gotten to her feet.

"CR!" she called, and then pointed to the creature's wide-open back.

Nodding, Cynthia Rose sent a barrage of cards nonstop (she was still very pissed at being knocked down a second time) until all of them exploded, and the creature with it, too.

The heart that floated up from it was bigger and shinier than the others.

"Jesus Christ," Jesse exhaled, wiping his sweaty brow, when the dust cleared. Beca was immediately at his side to survey the damage to his arm. "I'm fine," he assured her. "It's a deep cut but it's actually not as painful as it looks."

They caught their breaths while administering first aid to Jesse and rubbing their sore muscles. Before long they continued searching the mansion. The sun had fully set during the fight so they switched on the built-in flashlights on their suits. Beca glanced up the grand staircase and suddenly felt the urge to revisit Chloe's old room. The idea had never occurred to her until now, since Beca knew that Chloe had grown to have a less than favorable opinion of her time in that room.

Luke could tell Beca's intention from her expression and said, "I think it's best that we stick together, Beca, and follow the trail of those creatures."

"How do you know they won't be upstairs?" she said, trying not to sound too defensive.

"Because I have a feeling they're coming from there," Luke jerked his thumb toward a large hole in the wall on the left side of the foyer. Beca wondered why she didn't notice that earlier. "It wasn't there the last time we were here," he continued. "Even with all the damage we caused during the fight."

They approached the forced entrance cautiously. It led to what looked like a library, based on the walls against which rows upon rows of bookshelves stood. The floor had either sunk or slid back to reveal a secret basement of some sort. The group took the steps leading down to a purely white room, much like the one they found Chloe in only without the fake windows. Beca felt goosebumps form on her arms as the temperature dropped significantly. They had barely reached the bottom of the steps when they saw it.

At first, they thought it was another dark energy sphere, but upon closer inspection it looked more like a _rip_ in the empty space, with dark energy ominously spilling out of it. The rip was slightly smaller than Beca herself and they assumed that it had closed up since letting out the giant creature. They kept their guards up as they approached it. Beca wasn't sure if it was her imagination but she thought she could hear the faint sounds of thousands of those dark creatures snarling and clawing their way out. And above all that menacing noise rang a high-pitched scream of pain.

Wincing, Beca put a hand to her head. She wasn't imagining the screaming but it was only in _her_ mind; the pain wasn't hers, but the scream was painful enough to feel. She closed her eyes and covered her ears.

 _Please… make the screaming stop!_

The last thing she remembered was Jesse's concerned face before she blacked out.

* * *

A/N: Sorry for another painfully short chapter! And thank you to anyone who's followed, favorited, or reviewed! I really appreciate the time you take to read this story. :)

Also, if you're a fan of Avatar you might have gotten the references. :) Baguazhang is the Chinese martial art the creators used to pattern the original Airbending on (at least in TLA) and the spinning gates were what Tenzin used to teach Korra Airbending in TLOK.


	6. Dive to the Heart

A/N: Before anything else, I'd just like to throw in a huge **THANK YOU** to anyone who has read, followed, favorited, or reviewed this story—and, according to my e-mails, followed or favorited _me_ as an author, which I didn't even know was possible and is pretty damn cool.

My gratitude toward all of you deserves a pre-story Author's Note. So again, thank you.

Also, one of your fellow readers has written a short story on Wattpad entitled 'Burns,' which, IMHO, gives a realistic depiction of its theme. If you want to check it out, the author's Wattpad account is 'justanotherMuggle11' and we would both appreciate it. :)

Cheers to you all, and I hope you find this chapter as brain-tickling as I did writing it.

* * *

 **Chapter Six: Dive to the Heart**

Aubrey took a deep breath and hit the play button.

"—to the chase, John. You know why I'm here," the woman was saying sharply. "How did you find out about Chloe?"

Aubrey's eyes widened and she leaned closer to the screen. This video might finally give her some much-needed answers about Chloe's history.

The slightly grainy image of the Professor smiled lightly."Oh, right. Chloe was her name."

Aubrey frowned. Remembering that this had been recorded three months ago, she realized that the Professor had sent her and Luke to the abandoned mansion to rescue a person whose name he didn't actually reveal to them. ("You'll find a girl in there. Rescue her," he had said plainly.) She remembered being introduced to Chloe for the first time in the white room, and the fact that the Professor seemed to have known Chloe's name but didn't care to remember it troubled her.

"But _how_ I know is not the issue here, Gail," the Professor continued. "The issue is what _you_ have been doing to her."

Aubrey felt a twinge of relief at his challenging tone. She reminded herself that the Professor was, and had always been, quite an enigmatic guy; she shouldn't be surprised if he forgot a name or two. What mattered was that he was out to protect Chloe from this woman and it did seem that way.

"I wasn't recreating the Project, if that's what you're insinuating," the woman named Gail said with an air of disgust.

 _Mental note to self: determine what the Project is_.

"Oh, really?" The Professor chuckled. "Then answer me this, Gail. If you weren't planning on recreating the Project—or doing anything similarly dangerous—then why did you place Chloe in a location so close to my Institute, when you could have kept her in one of your fancy labs in New York?"

Gail lifted her chin defiantly but did not respond.

"You never would have placed her here if you weren't concerned about her powers and what she might do _again_ in case your experiments failed," the Professor said with a slight sneer that he failed to hide. "You wanted insurance… from none other than my own students. How shameful."

Gail flinched. Her nostrils flared and she leaned forward angrily. "What I'm doing to Chloe and _where_ I choose to do it is none of your business, John," she snarled. "We parted ways ten years ago. _I_ found Chloe after—"

"Chloe's _Nobody_ , you mean," the Professor corrected offhandedly.

Gail seemed surprised at the Professor's words but Aubrey was utterly baffled with where this conversation was going.

"How did you…?"

The Professor laughed. Aubrey felt uneasy by it, not to mention suspicious about why he failed to mention to her and Luke that he knew Chloe a decade ago. _Then again_ , she thought, _the Professor never tells us anything he doesn't think we should know._

"You think you're the only one who continued the research after the Project ended?" The Professor rose from his seat and walked over to the sit on front of his desk to be closer to Gail. "When the Project failed—"

"When you killed Chloe, you mean."

Aubrey gasped. Her chest tightened from the rapid rate at which her heart was beating. She studied the the Professor reaction carefully, but his expression merely changed from lecture mode to one of weariness.

"We'll never get anywhere if you continue to dwell on that, Gail," he said in a slightly scolding tone. Aubrey was stunned at his nonchalance over a murder accusation. "As I was saying... the power that consumed the girl when the Project failed was like nothing this world has ever seen. We all knew that at the time. So, naturally, when the Project failed, the good doctor and I sought to continue to learn more about it."

 _What doctor?_

"With the objectives of the Project in mind, I hope?" asked Gail with an air of already knowing the answer.

"Always," he replied curtly, as though insulted that it would be anything else. "Anyway, as we kept digging, we came across these _interesting_ notes."

The Professor took a manila folder from underneath a stack of papers on his desk and showed its contents to Gail. Aubrey made a quick search through the desk to see if the folder was still there. It wasn't.

"Ansem's reports…" whispered Gail so softly that Aubrey had to rewind and increase the volume to hear.

"I apologize for the low resolution," said the Professor. "You see, I could only get photo scans. The originals are, of course... with you."

Gail clenched and unclenched her jaw. "So you know everything then?" she asked, throwing the folder back onto the desk.

"All that talk about light and dark, Nobodies and hearts are… _fluffy_ concepts, in my opinion, yet mind-numbingly difficult to understand." The Professor shook his head and laughed. "But thanks to wise old Ansem they were made at the very least understandable, and that was as good a starting point as any for our research and for figuring out what had happened that night." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and moved toward the window. "So, yes. I know about what really happened to the girl—Chloe—and I know what is needed to reverse it."

"So you _are_ planning to reverse it?"

"Of course. It is only fair to right the wrong we've done to her."

Gail crossed her arms suspiciously. "And after it is reversed? After Chloe is whole again?"

For the first time, the Professor looked hesitant to answer. "If Chloe is all well and good, then we might explore the possibility of—"

"Of restarting the Project," finished Gail with a scoff. "You hypocrite."

"You and I _both_ know the implications of the Project succeeding," the Professor snapped. "Don't claim you didn't have the same intentions with your little experiment at the mansion."

"I'm trying to _prevent_ what happened, John!" Gail said firmly. "Chloe has a lot of darkness in her. If you resume the Project—"

"I'm not stupid enough to resume the Project without tweaking the method!"

"It's not about the method, John, it's about the _person_!" Gail retorted angrily, rising from her seat to face the Professor at eye-level. "This was your mistake in how you handled the Project. You treated Chloe like an _object_ , not a _person_ , and she _cracked_."

Aubrey's mind was racing. With how quickly the situation had reversed, she had no clue whose side was she supposed to be on.

The Professor seemed to consider Gail's outburst for a moment. "And like I said the last time we convened, I take _full_ responsibility for what happened. But tell me, Gail, is locking Chloe up these past ten years treating her more like a person than what we did?"

"Don't you dare, John," the woman growled, her voice trembling. "I was making amends, preparing her for a life outside—"

"By altering her memories?"

"By replacing the darkness with light."

"I see," the Professor nodded. "And you think this will help?"

Gail sighed and sank back into the armchair. "It's better than doing nothing at this point."

The air in the room seemed to have become less heated. To Aubrey, they no longer looked like two people arguing, but rather like two people who have lost something important and were trying to get it back, only with different approaches. It only made Aubrey wonder what sort of relationship these two had, and what Chloe's role was in tying their past together.

"Gail, in spite of everything, I do hope you would consider working together," the Professor said slowly, choosing his words carefully. "We have been researching nonstop on this whole darkness thing and obviously you and Jack knew more about the light thing. If we can put our minds and our research together, we can do the Project _better_ this time—avoiding all the mistakes we've made in the past." He lowered his head remorsefully. "I sure as hell don't have the moral high ground here but I swear I'm a different person, Gail. The stakes were too high then and they aren't now. I'm just hoping the vision still remains the same."

Gail was silent. Aubrey couldn't tell if she was contemplating the offer or thinking about something else because the woman's face was skillfully blank. The pause had taken longer than both Aubrey and the Professor had expected, which prompted the latter to ask, " _Is_ AMG still invested in the vision, Gail? Are you?"

When Gail continued to remain silent, the Professor sighed. "I understand your hesitation, considering your grave loss. But there must be a reason why you kept her safe, instead of turning her in to the cover-up team."

At this, Gail finally lifted her head to meet the Professor's eyes. "I will work with you," she said with surprising resolution for someone who had kept quiet that long. "On the condition that Chloe remains with AMG to continue her memory modifications, and that any future testing on her will have to be approved by me."

The Professor scratched his ear with a slight annoyance on his face. "But Gail, the girl has already been exposed to the outside world and has even _seen_ the institute. She has even met two of my students. Even if you could erase that from her memory, locking her up again after that seems _inhumane_ now."

Aubrey frowned. If her memory served her well (and it often did), Chloe had been asleep by the time they arrived at Barden that night and, unless the Professor had _lied_ to Aubrey, did not awake until a few days later. There was no way Chloe could have really understood what had happened to her once she left the abandoned mansion.

 _Is the Professor lying to keep her safe?_

"Only because _you_ took her out of it," snapped Gail. "The environment was completely humane, John. Besides, she won't be locked up for much longer. We have completed several years' worth of memories, soon she will be ready for integration into a normal life."

"And what of her powers? What if she loses control again? This is for your own safety as well—"

"Her own memories of her powers are... nonexistent."

The Professor frowned. "I don't understand, Gail—"

"I didn't think it would do her any good," she explained. "She had no good memories of using her powers anyway."

"But what if she ceases to have them once we restore her?" said the Professor, sounding slightly irritated. "You said her Nobody has several years' worth of false memories. Are you past the time when she had gained her powers originally?"

Gail hesitated for a moment. "It wouldn't be efficient to manufacture memories of _every second_ of her life, and we only developed the methodology of memory modifications seven years ago so there wouldn't have been enough time to even if we wanted to. So, before she left the mansion, Chloe's memories should have reached around her seventeenth birthday."

"But Chloe Beale was _ten_ when she displayed her powers the first time. Even with your memory modifications, she should still have them inherently."

"We had no idea if Chloe's Nobody was even capable of having powers of her own, which is why we kept her in isolation until we learned more. As you will find out, she still doesn't. My theory is that the delay is caused by her mental age having yet to catch up to her physical age."

"I see," the Professor nodded disappointedly. "And then, there is the future task at hand… Chloe's Heartless."

Aubrey, who had her mouth open for several minutes at this point in the conversation, closed it and blinked.

 _Chloe … doesn't have a heart?_

"Have you located it?" asked Gail with a sense of urgency and Aubrey assumed that she was talking about Chloe's heart. How a body could possibly function without a heart and still live, she had no idea, but this entire conversation had been beyond her comprehension ever since it began.

The Professor shook his head. "No. But the two students who took her Nobody reported encountering creatures we highly suspect to be dark in nature."

"At my facility?" Gail seemed surprised.

"Yes, which is all the more reason to keep Chloe _here_ , where she and everyone around her will be safe when or _if_ she exhibits her powers," argued the Professor. When Gail still looked as though she were preparing a counter-argument, he added, "You may continue administering memory modifications if you want. I will not stand in your way. I only wish for her to stay here because it would be easier than moving all of _my_ resources to New York since you can't stay at the abandoned mansion any longer."

Gail's expression was clearly calculating. When she had finally come to a decision, she nodded slowly. "Fine. Chloe can stay here. I will need eyes on her 24/7 but you and I both know that I can't very well be here all the time. That will be too suspicious."

"What are you suggesting?"

"I will station two of my agents at your school, under the pretense of enrolling at the institute," she said decisively. "They will be regularly reporting Chloe's every activity and personally facilitate her memory modifications."

The Professor looked slightly amused. "I've heard rumors about you taking in special youngsters as well but I had no idea that you did it so militaristically. Very well then. Have your assistant settle the details with Charlene regarding their enrollment. But other than that, do we have a deal? Will we work together to bring Chloe back?"

Gail nodded curtly. "The three of us will have to meet very soon," she said, rising from her seat. The Professor accompanied her to the door out of politeness. "Goodbye, John. I hope that this time…"

She didn't finish her sentence, but seemed to exchange knowing looks with the Professor. When the door had closed shut, the Professor leaned against it wearily. Aubrey watched him stare into space for a few seconds and waited with bated breath for another shocking reveal. However, nothing interesting happened. The Professor merely went back to his desk and sat down. He pulled out his phone and was texting for a while until he got up and left the office. He hadn't returned throughout the remainder of the clip, which ended precisely at midnight.

Aubrey leaned back into the chair, her mind reeling. There were so many things to process but she knew she didn't have time to go through them by herself; she needed to tell someone soon before she forgot anything important. So she created mental bullet points of what she was able to understand.

 _Stacie and Cynthia Rose are secret agents. They probably know something about Chloe that we don't;_

 _Chloe is not_ real _. She is a Nobody—that's a proper noun, I think—without a heart. The real Chloe is dead, but not really dead. Her heart is somewhere else, and getting it will make her whole again;_

 _The real Chloe died in an experiment called the Project, and she definitely had powers that are possibly very dangerous. The Professor, this Gail woman, and a 'good doctor' are involved in the Project;_

 _Gail, a man named Jack, and AMG are responsible for starting the Project;_

 _Chloe's memories_ aren't real _._

The last one made Aubrey shiver. Being fed years' worth of fake memories was a thought more chilling than that of Chloe not being technically alive but just an empty shell of who the real Chloe used to be. It was all very confusing, and Aubrey still couldn't decide what her next step should be. Unfortunately, in her state of confusion and her rush to leave the office, she hadn't thought of removing all evidence of her snooping.

* * *

Beca opened her eyes slowly. She was on her back, lying on a very soft, silky bed and, after her eyes adjusted to being newly opened, she realized that she was in complete darkness.

Well, not really.

Light seemed to be coming from below. Under the bed—

But wait, she wasn't on a bed.

She was _falling_.

Beca panicked and attempted to steady herself. She flipped over to face the ground and the light source, which turned out to be the same thing: a colorful, circular platform a few hundred feet below her. The circular floor was the only light in that strange place.

 _This falling feels weird…_

Judging by the rate at which the circle was getting bigger, Beca was descending very slowly—almost like she was _sinking,_ rather than falling, toward the ground. When she was close enough, she saw that the circular platform beneath her was made of stained glass. She couldn't quite make out the image but she was certain that it was of two people facing each other on eye level, with one person upside down and the other right side up. Surrounding these two were smaller circular portraits of people who were vaguely familiar to Beca.

When she was a only few feet from the stained glass floor, Beca righted herself and landed softly on both feet. It was very quiet. Not even the sound of her breathing permeated the air. She surveyed her surroundings before walking over to the edge and peering over it. Beca was never particularly afraid of heights, but when she saw that the platform she was on was actually a never-ending tower whose bottom disappeared into the darkness below, she yelped and backed up quickly toward the safety of the center.

 _Hang in there. You will be needed very soon._

Beca whipped her head around, searching for the voice.

But it wasn't really a voice… at least, she didn't _think_ it was because nobody really spoke.

She was about to utter a "Hello?" just to test if any sound was possible at all when a small figure materialized at the other side of the tower. It was a little girl, sitting on the floor with her knees against her chest and crying into her folded arms. Taking a closer look at the purple shorts and flowery shirt, Beca realized that the little girl was _her_.

The younger Beca Mitchell wiped her teary eyes and suddenly looked behind her. A menacing cloud of dark energy appeared and threatened to engulf the tiny child. Beca instinctively rushed forward to grab her younger self away from danger but there was no need. A thin, glowing film of light surrounded the younger Beca, protecting her from the darkness like armor. Then, realizing that it had no effect on the child, the dark cloud dissipated.

The child turned back to Beca, tears all gone, and smiled brightly at her. A confused Beca had only halfway returned the smile when the ground (or the tower) shook violently. Her heart raced. Panicking, she crouched low to the ground to avoid falling off the impossibly tall tower.

 _Don't be afraid. Your heart is strong._

The image of her younger self smiling and glowing with light flashed through Beca's mind. She suddenly felt a wave of courage that came with the realization that there was no reason to be afraid, and the moment she stood up, unafraid, the ground ceased to shake. She turned to thank her younger self but discovered that she had disappeared.

Then Beca felt something solid form in her hand and was surprised to see a sword firmly grasped in it.

It was the strangest sword Beca had ever seen. It had the typical broadsword blade, but the golden hilt was elaborately designed in the shape of a heart. Thin strips of gold metal extended upward, wrapping around the base of the blade in an elegant pattern. Perpendicular to its point and protruding to the side was a golden three-pointed crown. Despite its decorative and fantastical look, the sword felt very powerful in her hand. It surprised Beca how _light_ it actually was, almost like a natural extension of Beca's body. She gave it an experimental swing and liked how it sliced through the air quietly but efficiently.

Suddenly, the ground decided to give one more shake. Taking more notice of her surroundings this time, Beca saw a tall, white door in the distance. It was too far in the darkness for her to gauge its actual height, but she had a feeling that this door was enormous. The ground shook again, paused, then shook again. Beca soon realized that the shaking was caused by the force of someone—or something—banging on the other side of that giant door.

 _The Heartless are breaking through._

Beca shivered. This time, she was genuinely afraid. She was afraid of what was banging behind that door.

But once again she couldn't stay afraid for long, because dark creatures had begun to attack. Instead of appearing from dark spheres like before, however, they emerged from the ground, materializing out of the very darkness surrounding Beca, and they were far smaller than the red-clawed ones at the abandoned mansion. They were tiny, munchkin-sized dark creatures with glowing yellow eyes and two antennae sticking out of their uncovered, round heads.

Beca somehow knew what she had to do. She got into position and allowed the creatures— _the_ _Heartless_ —to make the first move. When they did, she evaded their attacks airily and opened up moments for to strike them effectively with her weapon— _the_ _Keyblade_.

The battle was over much quicker than Beca would have expected for her first time with a weapon.

 _You are the one who can keep the light on._

Before Beca could question what that meant, she awoke with a start.

* * *

" _Dude_ , personal space!" Beca growled, shoving Jesse's face away from hers and causing him to stumble backward and land on his butt.

"Are you okay?" Luke asked from near Beca's feet where he was crouched.

"Yeah... what happened?" she asked, taking Cynthia Rose's offered hand and pulling herself up.

"We should be asking _you_ that," the pink-haired girl said.

"You passed out for like two seconds and then came around again just now," said Jesse.

Beca frowned, trying to remember what she had dreamt about. Then she turned to the dark energy rip— _the Corridor of Darkness._

"The Corridor of Darkness?" she repeated under her breath.

"What?"

Beca ignored her teammates' curious looks and continued to stare into the dark depths of the rip that opened up to the Corridor of Darkness. Seeing it again recalled the growling of thousands of Heartless she heard just before she passed out. And the screaming… the painful screaming…

 _Don't be afraid. Your heart is strong._

Then Beca heard the banging. The Heartless were coming, their cries were growing louder.

"C-can you hear that?" she breathed, licking her dry lips.

Luke, Jesse, and Cynthia Rose strained their ears to pick up on what Beca was hearing.

 _The Heartless are breaking through._

"They're coming," she said vaguely. "Get ready."

When the bottom of the rip split further apart, Beca's Keyblade materialized in her grasp and earned her even more confused looks from Luke and Jesse. Cynthia Rose, on the other hand, narrowed her eyes suspiciously until the Heartless—the smaller kind that Beca fought at the top of that stained glass tower—finally broke through the rip and came pouring out.

Despite the dramatic increase in the number of enemies, the team fought them off more efficiently than they had done earlier. Beca, using a combination of her aerokinesis and Keyblade-wielding, easily disposed of the many Heartless that came through. Her teammates were doing just as well, encouraged by Beca's ability and renewed vigor. When the flow of Heartless had started to thin, Beca's attention was drawn to the rip. She pointed the Keyblade at the gaping hole and wondered if there was a way to close it.

As though to answer her question, a bright light emitted from the tip of her Keyblade and beamed toward the center of the darkness. The remaining Heartless around them seemed to realize what was happening and scrambled to get back through without being killed by Beca's teammates first. In a few seconds, Beca's Keyblade had sealed the rip shut.

The growling, the banging, and the screaming all suddenly stopped. In the silence that ensued, the four of them took deep breaths before Luke and Jesse turned to Beca. "Okay, explain that," the latter said, pointing at the object in Beca's hand. But just as he did, it disappeared with a flash.

Somehow Beca knew it would come out again when it was needed. "After I passed out," she started, choosing not to wait a second longer to explain the strange experience for fear that she might forget. "I woke up in this weird, dark place. I was falling—no, _sinking_ through the air, until I landed on some tower. There was a voice, but not really a voice because I couldn't _hear_ it. It was more like… a loud thought, I guess."

Three pairs of eyebrows were raised.

"Well, what did it say?"

"Something about me being needed very soon." Beca shook her head in confusion. "I had no idea what that meant until suddenly I saw _myself_ —or a younger version of me—crying. Dark energy, kind of like the ones we always see, surrounded me—the kid me—and I tried to save her— _me_ —but… I didn't need to. There was light in that little girl. And the light protected me from the darkness."

Beca avoided their eyes and stared into space. She was seeing the young Beca again in her own memory, crying on the day she found out her father had left.

"But then," she continued, not wanting to linger on that particular memory, "the ground started to shake. The weird non-voice was telling me not to be afraid because… well, because my heart was strong. Then I heard banging—the same banging that was coming through that rip," she pointed, "the Corridor of Darkness. The non-voice told me then, and again right before our fight, that the Heartless are breaking through." Beca's voice had lowered to barely above a whisper. "The Heartless... those were the dark creatures we've been fighting. And there are more. A _lot_ more."

Jesse visibly paled.

"I was scared, too," nodded Beca. "But I couldn't be. I remembered the light that protects me, and then suddenly this thing—the Keyblade—appears in my hand. From there, I sort of already knew what to do; I fought the Heartless. And when it was all over, the non-voice told me that I was the one who can keep the light on," she finished with a slight shrug.

Nobody said anything for a while. Luke and Cynthia Rose both had thoughtful frowns on their faces while Jesse shook his head every other minute, as though trying to shake the thoughts to make sense in his mind.

"Or... I could just have been high," Beca offered after a few minutes, to lighten the mood. "That shit happened in all of two seconds, according to you, so…"

"But we witnessed everything that happened after. That part was real," Luke said slowly. "The Heartless, the Keyblade… my gut tells me that all of this is real. And if it is then we have to do something to stop the Heartless from continuing to break through."

"We should head back to Barden," suggested Cynthia Rose. "Forget about capturing a Heartless now that Beca has sealed the Corridor of Darkness. That must have been where they were coming from, right?"

"Good idea," said Jesse. "We'll just tell the Professor what happened and get this crazy shit sorted out."

Beca nodded and they all followed Luke up the basement stairs and out of the mansion. As expected once the rip was sealed, they encountered no more Heartless on the way. Beca, Luke, and Jesse were too distracted on the car ride back, thinking about the strange events, that none of them noticed Cynthia Rose reaching into her bosom and extracting a pair of purple dice.

* * *

Aubrey was walking briskly through the hallways, her eyes darting between her phone and the way ahead. She was reading through her quick Google search on the keywords 'Gail,' 'AMG,' and 'Project' which spawned a lot of articles about a well-known tech company, the Abernathy-McKadden Group, or AMG, founded by power couple Jack and Gail (née Abernathy) McKadden. Their 'projects,' however, consisted mostly of breakthroughs in technology and nothing about a certain Chloe Beale.

Aubrey grabbed every student she passed by the shoulder and ask, "Have you seen Chloe? Do you know where she is?" until someone finally gave her an answer. ("At the g-greenhouses!") She was nearly sprinting as she scrolled through an article about how Jack McKadden had tragically passed away privately in their home ten years ago, when she bumped into a leggy brunette who was also staring intensely at her own phone.

"Hey, watch where you're—"

It was Stacie Conrad.

 _'Agent' Stacie Conrad._

"Stacie!" Aubrey exclaimed, and then took in the brunette's demeanor. Stacie had her satchel backpack over one arm and seemed to be rushing out the door impatiently. "Going somewhere?"she asked, eyeing the hastily stuffed blouse that was sticking out of Stacie's backpack.

An unusually nonplussed Stacie blinked her eyes at Aubrey before turning back to her phone. Aubrey intuitively sensed that something was about to happen. "Come with me!" The brunette suddenly grabbed Aubrey by the wrist and started pulling her toward the front doors.

"What the—!"

They hadn't gone far when Stacie had to jerk her hand away from Aubrey's due to an electric shock. "Ouch!" cried Stacie. "There's no need for that!"

"I know who you are! I know who you work for!" Aubrey yelled stubbornly.

"Shh!" Stacie pressed her hand over Aubrey's mouth before having it shocked again. She pulled it away and glared at the blonde. "Jesus, would you keep your voice down! What do you know? _How_ do you know?"

Stacie had resumed her walk to the door so Aubrey had to increase her pace to match the brunette's elastically long steps. "I saw surveillance footage of that Gail woman on the Professor's computer—"

"You _what_?! Why didn't you just e-mail the footage to yourself and watch it on your own computer?" Stacie chastised, not slowing her pace until they reached the driveway.

"—so I know that you're—wait, what?"

"Jesus, Posen, you've got the pretty all down but I didn't expect you to play the dumb blonde card, too."

Aubrey opened her mouth to respond to the insult—or compliment?—but couldn't find the right words.

"Whatever. All the more reason to get you away from here," continued Stacie, craning her neck (which in her case meant stretching it four feet into the air) as though expecting a getaway car to arrive at any minute.

"What are you _saying_?" Aubrey screeched, finally getting Stacie's proper attention.

"Think about it. The Professor now has surveillance footage of _you_ in his office watching videos of his and Gail's private conversation," Stacie pointed out. "How do you think he'll take that?"

Aubrey was momentarily blindsided by Stacie's lack of discretion but recovered quickly enough to get to what was important. "I don't care. I just need to know what you know about _Chloe_."

Stacie bit her lip and tapped her foot impatiently, her eyes darting around the driveway.

" _Hello?_ Did you hear me?" Aubrey snapped her fingers under Stacie's nose, annoyed that she was being ignored again.

"Do you know where Chloe is?" asked Stacie, seeming to have made a decision about whatever she was struggling with internally.

Aubrey crossed her arms suspiciously. "Why?"

"We're going to get her out of here. Take her to Gail. She's safer with us."

Aubrey uncrossed her arms. She replayed the Professor and Gail's conversation in her head and the question crossed her mind again: Whose side should she be on?

"I thought she and the Professor are working together now?"

Stacie shrugged. "Gail never trusted the Professor. And Cynthia Rose just made a pretty reckless move during the mission—"

"Wait, what?"

"—so we don't have much time to carry this out, okay?" Stacie put her hands on Aubrey's shoulders. "So tell me where Chloe is so _we_ can get her and I'll take _both_ of you away from here."

Aubrey was torn. She believed the sincerity and urgency in Stacie's tone and knew that if she took any longer to decide, she will have missed her chance.

"Greenhouses."

"Stay here," the brunette instructed, and Aubrey's pride felt a little stung at being told what to do. "I'll get Chloe. And if Cynthia Rose comes around, _please_ don't panic at what you might see. This is all part of the plan, okay? I'll be back soon."

Stacie stretched her legs until she was about as tall as a telephone pole and took giant steps toward the greenhouses to the far east of the estate, leaving Aubrey with a heart ready to burst in trepidation.

 _What am I doing? I've spent almost a decade of my life here and now, suddenly, I'm leaving as a fugitive?_

In her defense, never in the almost-decade that she'd been at Barden did the Professor seem as ominous and secretive as he was in that video. For some reason Aubrey felt that she needed to give that Gail woman a chance to explain her side before Aubrey chose which one she ought to be on.

Moments later, Stacie returned with a giggling Chloe riding on her outstretched torso. "How was the ride?" Stacie asked jokingly as she compressed back to normal size.

"It was fun!" laughed Chloe.

What Aubrey had once thought was Chloe's naturally bubbly behavior—the adorable giggling (usually directed at Beca's failed attempts at being cool), surprising everyone with hugs, or always wanting to play games with everyone's powers—was, she was now realizing, only a matter of having the memories and emotional maturity of a teenager.

 _You mean_ false _memories of a teenager._

"Aubrey?" Chloe called her attention with a slight tilt of her head. "Why are you staring at me? Do I have something in my teeth?"

"Uh, n-no." Aubrey shook her head. Suddenly she didn't know how to talk to this Chloe.

 _This Chloe? It's not like you've known any other._

"They're here," Stacie announced, adjusting the strap of her bag.

Luke's red convertible raced through the driveway and skidded to a halt at the three girls' feet. After raising their hands to shield their eyes from the blinding headlights, the three girls saw Cynthia Rose in the driver's seat and the rest unconscious in the back seat.

"What the fuck!" Aubrey and Cynthia Rose cried in unison.

"Beca!" cried Chloe worriedly, rushing forward.

Cynthia Rose got out of the driver's seat and glared at Stacie. "What's _Aubrey_ doing here? I thought we were going to be discreet!"

"What the hell did you do to them?" Aubrey shrieked, motioning toward the unconscious trio in the backseat.

"Relax, they're just sleeping," assured Cynthia Rose. "They'll only be out for a couple of hours. Stacie, take 'em and let's go."

"Take _who_ exactly?" Aubrey demanded.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Stacie lifted her hands to calm everybody (including herself) down. She shook her head at her partner apologetically. "CR, we've gotta take them all."

"Are you out of your mind? That wasn't part of the plan! Besides," Cynthia Rose waved at Luke and Jesse's unconscious figures, "we can't fit these guys with us!"

"We'll just have to find a way! Look, Aubrey can't stay here, and you and I know that these guys are green," argued Stacie. "You always said we needed more people on our team— _these_ could be those people!"

"Ex _cuse_ me!" Aubrey interrupted. "We already _have_ a team, and I'm not going anywhere until—"

Cynthia Rose and Stacie's cellphones beeped. "Stacie, we don't have time! Let's just leave them!"

" _Oh, no,_ you aren't going anywhere without me! _"_

"Jesus, make up your mind, Posen!"

Chloe stared helplessly at the arguing women. She only cared about making sure Beca and her friends were okay. She rested her hand on Beca's chest, relieved to feel it rise and fall in a steady rhythm. In fact, Chloe could almost hear her girlfriend's light snoring.

"Sorry, Aubrey, but you're leaving me no choice!" Stacie cried exasperatedly amid the bickering, before hooking her hand to the back of Aubrey's neck, pulling the blonde's face closer to hers, and kissing her in mid-sentence.

Chloe and Cynthia Rose's eyebrows shot up. "I was not expecting that," muttered Chloe.

Cynthia Rose rolled her eyes. "The Kiss of Death, _really_?"

"The Kiss of _Death_?" repeated a shocked Chloe, watching as Aubrey fell forward into Stacie's shoulder.

"It's just a name," Stacie clarified hurriedly. "It's really just an instant-action sleeping pill lodged at the back of my teeth that I forced her to take through a kiss."

Chloe glanced at Cynthia Rose and then back to Beca and the dozing duo flanking her. "Did you…?"

"Good God, no," Cynthia Rose denied, waving her hands wildly. "I used good old fashioned sleep bombs."

In the distance, the _thuga-thuga-thuga_ sound of helicopter propellers grew louder.

"So, Chloe," Cynthia Rose turned to the redhead who was still leaning over the car door, holding Beca's hand, "judging by your state of calm, you're willing to come with us?"

"We promise we won't hurt any of you," added Stacie. "We're the good guys."

Chloe looked at the two, at the unconscious Aubrey in Stacie's arms, and then at Beca. For good guys, they certainly liked knocking people out and taking them captive. "I'll go wherever Beca goes," she said determinedly. "I can't take on the two of you alone so I don't really think I have a choice."

The helicopter had begun its landing. It was white with a decorative blue stripe across its tail, with the letters AMG painted across it. The gust blowing from its propellers caused the girls' hair to fly all over the place, and the noise it created ended all conversation in the meantime. Cynthia Rose was first to approach the helicopter and opened its door. After glancing inside, her eyes widened in surprise, and then made gestures explaining the reason why they had to bring so many people along.

Stacie waited for Cynthia Rose to return before she decided to do anything about the sleeping Aubrey in her arms. "It's Gail," Cynthia Rose said loudly into Stacie's ear.

"What?" Stacie yelled through the noise of the helicopter. "I thought she was just sending a pilot. What do we do about Chloe when she sees her?"

"I'm out of sleeping bombs, how about you?"

"I only had the one K.O.D.," replied Stacie, looking over at Chloe who had pinned down her flaming red hair with one hand and was shielding her eyes with the other.

Cynthia Rose groaned. "Fuck this, the helicopter's going to attract attention the longer it stays here. Let's just deal with whatever shit goes down _when_ it goes down."

Stacie nodded and stretched herself toward the helicopter, taking Aubrey with her. The pilot had disembarked to help Cynthia Rose carry Luke inside. The private helicopter was very spacious but they had only just enough space to fit everyone so one by one, they took the students inside, saving Beca and Chloe for last. Cynthia Rose allowed Chloe to support Beca's weight on one side while she took the other. They placed Beca carefully in her seat and buckled her down beside Aubrey. Chloe climbed in after her, followed by Stacie and Cynthia Rose. Once the door was shut, the noise from outside was instantly muted and, within seconds, the helicopter was in the air.

Chloe was too preoccupied making sure Beca was comfortable, stroking her hair and watching the corners of the sleeping girl's mouth twitch as she dreamed, to notice the other person in the helicopter sitting across Cynthia Rose. That is, until Stacie cleared her throat awkwardly.

"Uh, Chloe? This is—this is Gail Abernathy-McKadden."

The woman watched in slow motion as Chloe's eyes turned from Beca's face, to Stacie's, and finally to hers. She watched as the pleasant smile disappeared as though it had been wiped off cleanly.

"Hi, Chloe," was all Gail could say to her at that moment, but behind those two words stood mountains of regret and remorse.

Chloe's lips trembled before she spoke.

"Mom…?"

* * *

A/N: If you're struggling to understand so far, that's okay. You are probably feeling the same way Aubrey, Beca, and everyone else are feeling anyway, so you will be getting the same answers they are going to get soon.

 **Kingdom Hearts** **fans** might be aware of the Dive to the Heart scenes in the game, but **others** can Google Image 'Kingdom Hearts Dive to the Heart' if you need help visualizing that weird dream state Beca was in. (Points for successfully guessing the design I had in mind for the stained glass.)

Or you can just imagine it however you want to, this is as much the readers' story as it is mine when it comes to imagination.

Lastly, if you _are_ a KH fan and are dying to know what **Beca's Keyblade** looks like (although I don't think anyone would be), it's also up to _your_ imagination because I just made it up. I tried looking for a clever one to pattern it on but it's really not worth the extra detail because the Keyblade is  not as important a plot element in _this_ story as it is in KH.

Author's Commentary: For some reason, I really enjoy writing from Aubrey's perspective (or as much perspective as I can get when writing in third person). She's uptight which can be both her best and worst quality. I really wish there'll be more Aubrey Posen in Pitch Perfect 3. She's fantastic.


	7. Explain

**A/N** : Special two-part episode coming up. Be warned: this is over 10,000 words long. Also, while I normally use _italics_ for _vocal emphasis_ or _internal monologues,_ there is a moment in this chapter when it is used for _flashbacks_.

* * *

 **Chapter Seven: Explain**

* * *

 **PART ONE**

Stacie and Cynthia Rose exchanged cautious looks as they watched Chloe leap from her seat and embrace Gail.

" _Mom_ ," Chloe sobbed happily into Gail's shoulder while the older blonde soothingly rubbed her back.

"Shh, it's okay," whispered Gail. "It's all going to be okay."

Only Stacie, Cynthia Rose, and a handful of scientists at AMG knew that Gail was feeding Chloe false memories of her and Jack as Chloe's parents. Having spent the past ten years creating those false memories, and the past seven watching them being fed into Chloe, Gail felt an overwhelming happiness at finally being able to hold Chloe like the daughter she had always wanted her to be.

"Where's Dad?" asked Chloe, lifting her head up and wiping tears from her face. "And where have you _been_ all these years? I—"

"Shh," repeated Gail. "Just relax, Chloe. Just relax…"

Unnoticed by the redhead, Gail had inserted the needle of a syringe into a vein on Chloe's neck, injecting her with a sleeping solution, when she was being consoled. In a few seconds, Chloe was unconscious against Gail. Stacie offered to take Chloe back to her seat but Gail shook her head.

"It's fine," she said, making room on her own seat so Chloe could sleep comfortably with her head on Gail's shoulder. "It's always good to have these around," she remarked casually, placing the empty syringe in a small pullout tray in her armrest.

Stacie and Cynthia Rose just gave her small smiles, eagerly looking between Beca and Chloe.

"Don't worry," assured Gail. "It _will_ all be over soon."

* * *

Beca slowly blinked her eyes open. Her back ached painfully and so did her cheek and neck. Lifting her head, she found out why; she had been asleep on her folded arms, bent over a long wooden desk. She stretched, hearing the bones in her back crack and feeling the blood rush back to her arms. In the seat to her left, Jesse was also rousing from sleep and wiping drool from the corner of his mouth. In front of him was Luke, yawning widely, and on Luke's left, across the table from Beca, Aubrey was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. They also seemed to share Beca's pain from sleeping in such an uncomfortable position.

"Where are we?" Jesse asked groggily, his eyes not fully opened.

"What the fuck?" Beca muttered, glancing around and realizing where. "We're in a library."

They were in a grand, empty hall filled with polished wooden tables, elegant lamps, and bookshelves as far as the eye could see—pretty much anything you would see in an ordinary library, but architecturally more beautiful.

"The New York Public Library," Aubrey noted with a confused scowl.

"Very good," said a female voice from the end of the large hall. "You know your libraries."

The library was so large and empty that the voice carried out all the way to the other end, thus they all had to squint to see to whom it belonged. From that distance, they could only make out a slim, blonde figure in a dark grey pantsuit, flanked by Stacie and Cynthia Rose, who were in contrast easily recognizable.

And so was the woman, when she had come within reasonable distance.

"You!" Aubrey gasped, rising from her chair in surprise. "You're Gail Abernathy-McKadden!"

Beca wondered who the hell this woman was and why Aubrey had such a reaction to her.

 _Wait a second... why is Aubrey with us anyway? I thought she was left at the mansion._

Beca rubbed her head as she strained to remember what had happened in the past few hours.

"I was hoping to introduce myself but—"

Aubrey cut her off. "Where's Chloe? What have you done to her?"

Beca tensed at the mention of her girlfriend and stood up as well. "What does Chloe have to do with this? Where is she?"

"Please, calm down!" Gail raised her hands in a pacifying gesture when Jesse and Luke also rose, realizing the danger of their situation.

"How can you expect us to be calm when you kidnap us and enter in that creepy way you just did—knowing our names and stuff?" Jesse rambled in a high-pitched squeak.

Gail frowned slightly. "I'm sorry, we were out getting you something to eat," she explained, waving a hand at the paper bags in Stacie and Cynthia Rose's arms. "I didn't expect the timing to be so… _exact_."

"Oh," Jesse said, eyeing the food hungrily. "Sorry."

Beca looked between Gail, Aubrey, and Jesse incredulously. "What the fuck is going on?" she demanded. "Aubrey, who is this woman and what has she done to Chloe?"

"She's the one who kept Chloe in the abandoned mansion!" Aubrey revealed. Beca felt her face heat up in anger and clenched her fists tightly. "She and the Professor—"

"Aubrey, wait. I know you've seen the video but please allow me time to explain—"

"What video?" Luke interrupted, throwing a confused look at Aubrey.

"When you guys left for the mission I went into—" Aubrey began before Beca cut her off. "There's no time for that!" she bellowed. " _Where's Chloe?_ "

"What did you buy?" Jesse asked Stacie curiously, causing an uproar from his friends at his unnecessary question.

Gail pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed as the students continued to yell at each other. She should have known not to take a group of young adults against their will and have them wake up hungry and uncomfortable. " _Okay!_ Let's take this one at a time!" she yelled over the noise. "No interruptions, please!" she added, throwing Beca a look when the brunette opened her mouth.

"Beca, Chloe's right over there," Cynthia Rose said helpfully, nodding toward the chairs across the aisle from where Beca and the others were. Chloe was lying across two chairs that were faced together to form a makeshift bench. "She still has a few minutes before she wakes up."

"Oh," mumbled Beca, a little embarrassed at causing a scene by not noticing her girlfriend asleep just a few feet away. She immediately walked over to stay near Chloe just in case.

"And to answer your question, Jesse, we got sandwiches," said Stacie, holding up the bag and tossing him one from inside.

" _Sweet!_ Meatball Sub," he said, not wasting any time in unwrapping it and taking an appreciative bite.

"And Aubrey," Gail turned to the younger blonde, "I'm sure you have a million questions after seeing that video. But I think it would be better if I explained everything from the start—preferably without interruption, and when Chloe is awake."

"How would we know you're not feeding us lies? Like what you've been doing to Chloe," Aubrey said coldly.

Beca frowned at that comment but remained silent.

"I don't have much time to convince you to trust me," said Gail. "By morning John will find out that the five of you are no longer at the institute, and he will know where to find you. Which is why I chose the New York Public Library to tell you everything," she added, gesturing around them. "It's a neutral location, though a lot closer to my headquarters than it is to Barden. That means you can—although I wish you wouldn't—walk away at any point if you don't believe a word I'm saying, and I won't stop you. I can only explain as much as I am able to and hope that you understand. After that, I promise to respect your decision, whatever it is."

"Our decision?"

Gail nodded. "By the end of everything I will say, the ball will be in your court. Or rather, it will be in Chloe's." They both turned to the redhead, who was stirring in her makeshift bed. "She will finally get to decide her own fate," Gail added softly as a hopeful afterthought.

* * *

Chloe wouldn't stop stirring. She was clearly uncomfortable with lying on the setup of the chairs but the floor was far too cold and too hard for her to sleep on, so Beca carefully crafted a cushion out of heavily condensed air and lifted her on it instead. Such a maneuver was difficult to maintain for a long period of time, so Beca sat cross-legged on the floor beside Chloe and focused on it. Sore arms were well worth it to make Chloe even a fraction more comfortable.

With Beca occupied with Chloe, Jesse munching gratuitously on his sandwich, and Luke looking at her for what to do next, Aubrey turned back to Gail. The woman was still staring curiously at Beca, and Aubrey knew her attention was split so she conceded, "Fine. We'll listen to what you have to say after Chloe wakes up."

Jesse let out a small sigh of relief and plopped down on his chair with his sandwich. Luke remained standing, waiting for Aubrey.

"So, Chloe and Beca are…together?" Gail suddenly asked, turning away from the two and raising her eyebrows at her agents.

Stacie and Cynthia Rose ducked their heads to avoid the woman's eyes; they hadn't exactly reported _that_ part about Chloe's time at Barden to Gail.

"Uh, yeah," Aubrey filled in awkwardly when the two busied themselves with unloading sandwiches instead of answering Gail.

Aubrey herself was itching to ask Gail questions—about Chloe and her powers, about the Professor and the Project—but she was also _starving_. Her last meal had been at lunch and her wristwatch read that it was now almost midnight. She turned back to the table and gratefully accepted the sandwich Stacie held out to her. She meant to thank Stacie verbally but on their way up Aubrey's gaze passed Stacie's lips and she suddenly remembered _how_ she ended up unconscious in the first place.

"...What, you don't like chicken?" Stacie asked, when Aubrey froze with her hand still extended even after taking the paper-wrapped sandwich. "You can have my mine if you want. Spicy Italian," she added with a wink.

Aubrey blushed and turned around without giving her an answer. They all ate separately, the wide aisle dividing them with Aubrey, Luke, and Jesse on one side and the New Yorkers on the other, and in complete silence. Beca was still busy focusing on Chloe and hadn't said a word since. Each one of them reflected on how their already strange night had just gotten stranger and so they appreciated the prolonged silence, for it allowed them to return to normalcy—even though eating sandwiches at the New York Public Library after hours didn't quite count as normal. Aubrey, for one, was grateful for the respite, since it gave her time to collect her thoughts and prepare to be critical of Gail's revelation.

About half an hour had passed when the sleeping solution finally began to wear off and Chloe raised herself into an upright position on Beca's air cushion. "Beca? Why are we at a library?" she asked groggily, taking Beca's offered arm and standing up.

"Uh, it's a long story, Chlo," replied Beca. "But there's someone here to explain…"

Not wanting to cause a commotion when Chloe inevitably recognized her as her 'mother' again, Gail had risen immediately when the redhead regained consciousness. She held up her hand and cut Chloe off just before she express her joy in getting to introduce Beca. "Chloe," Gail began seriously, "there's something important I have to tell you. "

Her grave tone surprised Chloe. She looked at all the serious expressions around her and tensed. "What's wrong?"

"First of all... I'm not your real mother."

There was a pause wherein, simultaneously, Beca wracked her brain, wondering if she had missed anyone ever mentioning Gail being Chloe's mother; Chloe questioned her entire life and history; and Aubrey realized one of the biggest lies planted in Chloe's memories.

"Y-you mean like I'm adopted?" Chloe asked with an air of hoping that the answer was yes.

Though she never would have expected to wake up to _this_ news immediately after seeing her 'mother' for the first time since escaping the abandoned mansion, Chloe could at least handle the news that she was adopted. That wasn't a big deal; plenty of couples adopt. But what she _couldn't_ handle was the possibility that her connection to this woman had less to do with family than it had with whatever memory modifications she had undergone at the mansion.

 _That would explain why my 'parents' never came looking for me..._

"Not exactly…"

Chloe's heart sank.

"Hang on, you made her think you were her _mother_?" said Aubrey, genuinely curious. She knew Gail had been altering Chloe's memories to 'replace the darkness with light'—whatever that meant—but she wondered what making Chloe think she was her daughter had to do with it.

On the other hand, Beca, who still had no clue what was going on other than that Gail was the one who had locked Chloe up at the abandoned mansion to mess with her mind, looked between Aubrey and Gail and growled, "What exactly do you mean by ' _made'_ her think?"

"Guys, before this escalates into another shouting match, maybe we should let Gail start explaining her side?" Luke offered to his fellow students after seeing Beca clench her fists. After taking a moment to consider (and check if Beca was all right with it) they nodded and all eight of them gathered at one table.

Beca pulled her chair close to Chloe's protectively and carelessly placed her unwrapped sandwich on the desk. She wasn't hungry for food as much as she was for answers that would help them get to the bottom of Chloe's mysterious history. Now that this Gail woman had revealed the truth about not being Chloe's real mother, Beca hoped that Chloe would once again be open to learning more about her past Nevertheless, she still only wanted Chloe to be happy, so she reached for her hand supportively.

"I guess I'll start at the very beginning," said Gail.

* * *

"How old were you when you first started exhibiting your special abilities?"

The Barden students looked at each other before Aubrey answered first. "Before I turned eleven."

"Twelve," said Luke, and Jesse nodded the same.

"My tenth birthday," answered Beca.

"Oh, yeah, I remember that!" Jesse piped up. The memory clearly brightened his mood since he began recounting it out loud. "It was on a weekend so Beca broke into our school to vandalize—I mean, _redecorate_ the Wizard of Oz set for our play the week after just so she didn't have to play Toto the dog—" He dodged the unwrapped sandwich Beca had thrown at his head to get him to shut up, but he only continued the amusing tale of Beca's 'first time.'

"But about halfway through, the drama teacher caught us and chased Beca into a corner. I was so scared I'd have to be the one to tell Beca's mom at her own birthday party that Beca had died jumping from the fourth floor of our school—but she totally got away without a scratch! And the teacher didn't want to make it seem like she had forced Beca to jump so she didn't even give us detention! Needless to say, Beca got into the habit of extreme rule breaking after that."

Aubrey shook her head and chuckled in spite of herself and Luke just laughed. Even Stacie and Cynthia Rose had to chuckle when Chloe patted Beca on the head proudly.

"You could've left out the part about Toto," grumbled Beca.

Gail observed their interactions with curiosity and amusement. Reading her agents' reports was one thing, but seeing the students up close and in person was a delightful experience; she enjoyed how they all seemed to have their own personalities. Clearly, Beca was the (self-proclaimed) "badass" of the group, the one with a bit of a subversive kink but who could be counted on to take charge when the situation called for it. Jesse was the funny, loyal one who wore his heart on his sleeve. Luke was—well, Gail hadn't really picked up on what Luke was yet besides being the charming gentleman. And Aubrey had already proven herself to be the responsible albeit slightly abrasive one.

Oh, how she wished that things had been different and _she_ was chosen to run the Barden Institute instead. She would have loved the opportunity to mentor the students in front of her, as she had done with Stacie and Cynthia Rose. But right now, with the way fate had turned out, she had a responsibility to set things right. Time was running out.

"Almost ten years ago," Gail continued when they had quieted down again, "possibly around the time you were discovering your powers, Aubrey, I came across a news report about a strange incident in a small town in Florida. According to the report, the incident had started out with a 911 call from a concerned neighbor about a domestic disturbance. But when the police had arrived at the scene, they found a woman unconscious and a man, presumably the husband… thrown through the window with shards of glass sticking out of his chest."

Gail's audience winced.

"Normally, this kind of news wouldn't concern me, but a few days later my husband and I were approached by some government agency that said they needed our help and that it involved this particular incident."

Beca's eyebrows shot up. "Why you?" she asked suspiciously.

"That's a fair question. You see, my husband and I founded a company that had become well known for developing breakthrough technologies applicable across a variety of fields—medicine, business, the environment, et cetera," explained Gail. "You may have heard of it—the Abernathy-McKadden Group or, as we are now more commonly known, AMG."

Aubrey and Luke nodded while Beca and Jesse merely continued to listen intently.

"Anyway, our current focus at that time was genetics, particularly in the area of more efficient and effective disease control strategy in developing countries. We had state-of-the-art equipment and the best scientists in the world. The government came to us because they needed to carry out a special project that _might_ involve genetics and that needed to be kept top secret, hence the private sector involvement."

Gail noticed Aubrey chewing her lip and motioned her to voice her thoughts. "What did genetics have to do with the incident in Florida?" she asked.

"I'll get to that in a while but it has something to do with the fact that the Florida couple had a daughter."

Everyone instinctively turned toward Chloe, who swallowed. "Me?"

Gail nodded solemnly. "You ran away that night and prompted a state-wide search. It actually reached the news here in New York but then, all of a sudden, the news about you stopped and my husband and I found ourselves standing behind a two-way mirror, watching you in a room with a child psychiatrist. I honestly thought we were being asked to take custody of you, but the agent who met with us told us that _you_ were the genetic subject of the project."

Gail eyed Chloe warily, doubting if the young girl were ready to hear what she had to say next. But Gail reminded herself that she had made a promise, both to these kids and to herself, that she would let the truth out and lay everything on the table. So she continued.

"Just like Aubrey and Beca had, you started showing your powers when you were around ten, Chloe." At this, they all perked up, eager to know what Chloe was capable of. "You started moving things without touching them, and knowing what others were going to say even _before_ they said it. But unlike Aubrey and Luke," she said with an air of sadness, "you weren't exactly in an environment that welcomed your special abilities."

The group shifted in their seats uncomfortably as they instantly understood what Gail meant. While Aubrey and Luke, who came from wealthy and respected families, immediately had a solution to the "problem" that arose in their early adolescence (the solution being enrollment at the Barden Institute), others less privileged like Beca and Jesse knew all too well what could happen if your newly discovered—hence, _uncontrollable—_ powers were made known to an unappreciative public.

Most of the time it was fear. Sometimes it was anger and disgust.

"Your father—your _real_ father—didn't like that you were drawing attention to your family," continued Gail. "And at that time, people with special abilities had to be reported to the police. But your father was involved in certain matters that were rather… _illicit_ , so he sought to repress your powers."

Gail watched as Chloe's friends frowned. Repression wasn't a radical idea; it was usually one of the first reactions to the discovery of one's special abilities. But something about Gail's tone made them think this didn't turn out so well for Chloe.

"But as every single one of you in this library knows, you're not always in control over _when_ your powers exhibit themselves. Chloe's in particular wasn't something you could pass off as an accident. Soon it was close shave after close shave, and your father had had enough." Gail paused, checking herself and the students around her. "Chloe, I'm very sorry to tell you this, but your father got violent and he tried physically beating the powers out of you. He would hit you whenever you used them, to condition your mind not to do it again. He locked you in your room with barely any meals and wouldn't let you out for days as punishment whenever you did it."

Aubrey covered her mouth with her hand in shock. Luke looked down sadly and Jesse had turned a shade of pale green.

But Chloe had surprisingly held herself together. "And my real mother?" she asked quietly.

At this, Gail gave a small, sad smile, remembering the reports she had read both from the police investigation and the psychiatrist about the woman. "She loved you very much, Chloe. She wanted to protect you from him... but he was much too strong. The night you ran away, you had accidentally broken the door to your room with your powers. Your father heard the noise and immediately ran to your room, to find everything in it levitating. Your fight or flight instincts must have kicked in and you literally _flew_ out of your room to escape him. You went to straight to your mom because she was your safe place. She had always protected you and you hoped she could do it again."

Gail saw Beca steal a glance at Chloe as a single tear trailed down Chloe's cheek and curved under her chin. This was the first time Beca, or anyone besides Gail, had ever witnessed Chloe shed a tear. It was unbearable.

"She was… knocked out during the struggle," Gail continued gently, "and you got very angry. You had spent months trying to repress your powers but not to control them. So when it got too much for you… well, I already recounted what I heard in the news report…"

"I killed my own father," Chloe said quietly. "And my mother died because of me."

This caused Gail to lean forward at once. "Now, I want you to understand, Chloe, that you were _not_ responsible for anyone's death," she said seriously. "You can't blame yourself for what happened, you weren't... completely yourself that night." They all looked at her curiously but she said, "I'll explain as I go along. I'm sorry if my storytelling is all over the place—but at the very least you now know how I got involved in Chloe's life." She looked at Aubrey for affirmation.

"Tell us about the project," the younger blonde said. "What exactly did Chloe have to do with it?"

"Well, long story short, the government was concerned about the need for an immediate solution to the country's dependence on foreign oil. It has long been an initiative to find alternative energy sources to meet rising global demand but it had never been _as_ important as it was ten years ago, after—"

"After 9/11 and the oil crisis that followed," finished Luke. When they all looked at him in surprise, he explained, "My mom's a professor of global politics. She used to make me read the papers every day."

Gail nodded. "That's right, Luke. The world had reached the point of no return after that terrible day. The repercussions would come slowly, seemingly innocuously, to the American people, but at that point governments around the world were scrambling. In less than fifty years, we would be seeing a generation of Americans living in an energy crisis... They saw Chloe as the solution to that future."

"But how?" Luke asked. "It's not like you could harness enough of her energy to power the entire country, let alone the entire world."

"And that is where genetics comes in," said Gail. She paused to look at them intently. "Haven't you ever wondered where your powers come from? I myself was surprised to be told that there had been no _official_ research aimed at discovering the origins or mechanisms of these mysterious abilities. It didn't help that most people who _had_ powers were keeping them a secret, and those that were already known did not want to be subjected to testing."

"So... you think our powers are genetic?" Jesse frowned. "Then how come I'm the only one in my entire family with powers?"

"It was not necessarily the hereditary aspect of genetics we were concerned about," clarified Gail. "Rather, the individual's specific DNA make-up—particularly, finding which gene was responsible for the creation, or alteration, of proteins in the body that allowed you to do the special things you do."

"So, it's some sort of a genetic mutation that gives us our powers?" asked Aubrey.

"To be fair, we had only studied Chloe, but based on the samples we had gotten from her, yes," nodded Gail. "Compared to regular human DNA, Chloe's was a mystery: on the surface, it seemed perfectly normal but whenever Chloe would have... whenever her powers manifested," she said evasively, "some sort of reaction would occur. So you understand why we had to take her in completely; we couldn't just work on an inventory of samples, we _needed_ Chloe. Without her, the Project could not have gone on."

"But why Chloe?" Beca demanded. "Why couldn't you have persuaded some other person? She was just a child!"

Gail looked down guiltily. "We didn't have much of a choice. You see, Chloe's was a special case—in her, they saw an opportunity. After the incident at her home, she had no next of kin, and so she was legally a ward of the state. For the first time, they _had_ someone to research. So, after getting myself involved in the project, the government and AMG discovered the fundamental origins of your powers. But, ultimately, that still wasn't the objective."

"The objective was how to _replicate_ that power, so you could turn whatever Chloe's was into an unlimited source of energy," finished Aubrey.

"Essentially, yes," nodded Gail. "Chloe's power was very special, even for someone _with_ powers to begin with. After she underwent some interviews and tests, we concluded that not only did she have the ability to move things using only her mind, an ability we called _psychokinesis_ , but she could also read our minds telepathically."

The students looked at Chloe with a mix of admiration and sympathy, because, despite the amazing things she could potentially do with her powers once developed, at the back of their minds they all knew how Chloe had gone through those tests and interviews: in detainment and isolation. If one good thing had come out of that revelation, it was that they were right not to let their own powers known, even around Barden; the rumor that one would be taken away and experimented on was, apparently, completely true.

"You can imagine," continued Gail, "the fascination we had with both the science behind it and the possibilities of future tech we could develop if we could replicate it at its peak. Imagine a world where cars ran on sheer will or thought; where long-distance communication no longer cell towers or devices!" Gail was momentarily filled with the nostalgic feeling of excitement, but then the reality sunk in and she sighed.

"We were knocking at the gates of a technological revolution," she continued wistfully. "But with that dream would come the toppling of not just businesses but entire _industries_ around the globe, totaling trillions of dollars, and not to mention the massive job losses. So we had to keep the Project quiet to the utmost degree. As far as my husband and I were aware, only a handful of people were directly involved. None of us could even name every single member on the team."

"The Professor was one those people," said Aubrey, partly to inform her friends and partly to prompt Gail to begin discussing his involvement.

"Yes. John Smith was our primary liaison with the government. Though he was never a politician himself, John was very close with a former Secretary of State, and that, in addition to his economic expertise, allowed him to cultivate a respectable amount of influence in Washington. Jack—my husband—and I were the sole technology providers and the majority financiers. You could say we had the highest stake in the Project financially, but the concept was entirely fed to us from the government. The rest of the team consisted of doctors and scientists that we only communicated with through their written reports."

A shadow crossed her face and she sighed. "The problem with keeping something _that_ important _that_ secret is that there is no one making sure... no accountability…" And for the first time that evening, Gail struggled with her words, as she tried to reign in the anger and shame she felt over how badly she had let the Project turn. "After about six months of studying Chloe, we were nowhere near even _locating_ the particular gene," she confessed. "And it was because we were faced with a great irony."

She looked at Chloe. "You _stopped_ exhibiting your powers."

Chloe's eyes widened curiously. "Why?"

"We weren't sure but the consensus was that there was simply no reason for you to use them," shrugged Gail. "On average, these special abilities appear around the ages ten to thirteen, the age range commonly associated with the onset of puberty. Kids at this age experience hormone fluctuations, emotional stress, et cetera, so we assumed that, in the facility we had built for you—and factoring in the lack of a social environment—you just weren't getting the same stimulants as you would if you were outside."

"Facility?" Beca asked sharply. "So you admit that you kept her locked up, just like her father did."

Gail gave Beca an almost defensive look. "We needed to keep her from the public just in case her powers overwhelmed us. Besides, the room we kept her in was perfectly safe. We had a simulated environment, much like the ones you use for your training—did you ever wonder where it came from? We gave Chloe proper meals, educated her, and allowed her to nurture her hobbies and interests like a normal child. She was happy."

"But she had no contact with anyone besides strange men in lab coats."

"I didn't say it was the _best_ environment," said Gail with a little more bite than her usual tone.

"So I stopped using my powers," Chloe cut in, squeezing Beca's hand to diffuse whatever retorts the brunette had prepared. "But wouldn't the information you needed still be in my DNA, whether or not I used my powers?"

"That was the assumption—or rather, the _hope_ —that kept us going for the first five or six months," answered Gail. "But the only thing we discovered was that the gene affects the chemical composition in your brain, but to find which parts _exactly_ are affected by it and _how_ , we needed you to give us a demonstration. But the operant conditioning you had gone through as a child, combined with the comfortable environment we provided you with, made that nearly impossible. It made sense since the few times we could get anything out of you were only at the beginning."

Gail took a deep breath, readying herself, and the students, for the worst reveal. "We were getting desperate, and we knew of one possible trigger to get you to use your powers..."

"No way," gasped Jesse after they registered Gail's tone. "You _didn't_ …?"

Aubrey looked like she might vomit, and Luke was as pale as a sheet. Beca had gripped Chloe's hand so tightly she almost wondered why Chloe didn't retract hers. But all the redhead did was calmly say, "It's okay. Go on."

"I am so sorry, Chloe," Gail whispered, looking upon the face of the girl she had hurt, unable to stop her eyes from tearing up. "Jack and I entered the lab one day…"

* * *

" _I can't wait to see Chloe's face when she sees what we got her," said Jack, his icy blue eyes twinkling with glee as they were scanned by the locking mechanism on a door labeled 'Authorized Persons Only.'_

 _Gail gave her husband a stern but affectionate look as he struggled to get through the door carrying a cage. "I still think we should have gotten her a_ stuffed _bunny instead of—"_

" _But it'll be good for her to have something to take care of while she's here," Jack insisted, cooing at the brown and white Holland Lop inside the cage. "Isn't that right, Rabbit De Niro?"_

 _Gail just shook her head with a laugh as they entered the elevator at the end of the empty hallway that would lead them to the underground lab_ _. She knew that Jack was just as excited as Chloe would be about her new pet; the two got along famously, mainly because Jack was like a giant ten-year-old himself—when he wasn't commanding the boardroom or negotiating deals._ _The couple hadn't seen the little redheaded girl in a week due to a string of business meetings held across Europe, but the instant they had the opportunity to leave the work to their associates, Jack and Gail had immediately flown back to the U.S., excited to reunite with Chloe._ _It was nearly past midnight by the time they had arrived in New York City, but Gail was excited to wake her and surprise her with the gift, like her own father used to do when she was young._

" _How do you think we should—?" Jack was about to ask when the elevator doors opened to the sound of a high-pitched screaming._

 _They exchanged a quick look of concern and fear before sprinting toward the main lab, leaving the rabbit in his cage and on the floor behind them._

* * *

"We didn't question it; we knew it was you so we ran. John and this doctor whom I had only met once were there. Jack confronted them while I took you away from that damned machine…"

* * *

 _The sight that greeted their eyes was utterly horrifying. The screaming was indeed coming from Chloe, who had her arms and legs spread out painfully onto a circular machine, a device they had never seen before. Electrodes were connected to Chloe's temple and various other parts of her body, sending electrical shocks that were causing her screaming and violent shaking. O_ _bjects that were usually scattered around the testing room—stuffed animals or wooden toys that they had been trying to get Chloe to move with her mind—were now orbiting the girl, creating a sort of mini solar system with Chloe at its center. The objects were moving so quickly that most had already crashed into each other and split into a blinding mess of sharp splinters and cotton fluff._

 _Inside the command center and safe behind its bulletproof glass windows were two men. The one in a white lab coat was controlling the intensity of the torture device with an anxious expression, while the other was making notes on the computer and simultaneously checking Chloe's brain functions and blood chemistry._

"WHAT ARE HELL YOU DOING? _" Jack roared, barging into the small room._ _He grabbed the surprised doctor—Gail recalled that his name was Ben—by the lapels of his coat and slammed him against a wall. The only other person in the room, John Smith, looked up from the computer in surprise._

" _Jack—Gail—I thought you wouldn't be back until Friday?" he said, clearly buying time to save his work._

" _We told you NO! Not until we came up with an alternative!" Jack growled as he pressed his elbow against Ben's throat._

 _Gail immediately went to the console to find a button to release Chloe from her binds. Since Ben had been removed from his position, the electrical charges had ceased but she could still hear Chloe through the glass, sobbing painfully and crying out to be released._ _John had made no motion to stop Gail as she freed Chloe and ran to her. Meanwhile, Jack had knocked Ben out cold with a punch and was now turning to John._

" _Jack, please—" John raised his hands in defense. "Let's me explain first."_

" _There is no excuse for_ torturing _an innocent child! You went behind our backs, you son of bitch!"_

 _Gail could only echo her husband's words in her heart, as she was busy prying Chloe away from the torture device. She was no longer screaming but, taking her pale and frail body into her arms, Gail didn't see that as a good sign at all, and when she removed the electrodes she saw that they had left dark burn spots on Chloe's skin._

* * *

"I held you in my arms and saw how weak you were... I knew immediately that it wasn't the first time they had done that to you, and I _hated_ myself for not being there to stop it the other times. Then you looked at me with those big blue eyes of yours, and you said…"

* * *

 _Gail brushed the red hair from Chloe's sweaty forehead._ " _Chloe," she whispered, pressing her fingers against Chloe's pulse point. "Please wake up, honey. You're okay now. You're safe."_

 _Chloe's eyelids lifted ever so slowly and only halfway—the poor girl was exhausted. She looked up at Gail and widened them a bit._

 _Gail's relief was short-lived for, even after recognizing her, Chloe's darling blue eyes began to water._ " _I-I'm sorry…" Chloe said weakly, a fresh tear running down her already stained cheek. "I'm sorry I couldn't… I couldn't…"_

" _Honey, it's okay," reassured Gail, placing a kiss on her forehead and holding her tightly. "It's not your fault."_

 _But Chloe didn't seem to hear her. She continued to plead, "Please don't hurt me anymore… I didn't mean to…"_

 _Gail's heart broke upon hearing Chloe beg, especially when Gail had promised the little girl, on the day they first met, that nothing bad would ever happen to her again._

* * *

Beca watched as Gail was momentarily overcome by a wave of emotion and had to stop. She clearly saw that the woman had held on to the guilt for ten years. Even Stacie and Cynthia Rose looked like they were reliving the first time they had heard the story themselves. Luke and Jesse both ran their hands through their hair, having the same desire to flush their minds of images they did not want to see. And Aubrey was just staring into space.

Feeling numb with all the anger, disgust, and sympathy, Beca turned to look at Chloe, the girl who was wronged by all this. She was surprised to see Chloe looking right back at her; her eyes were slightly red rimmed and not as bright as they usually were but otherwise she looked relatively calm. Chloe reached over and brought her hand to Beca's cheek to wipe the tears that Beca was surprised to find had fallen there. Then Chloe gave her a small, comforting smile.

Beca could almost hear Chloe's soft, angelic voice in her head.

 _It's okay. I'm okay._

Whether she had imagined it or not after learning about Chloe's powers, Beca didn't care; she just closed her eyes and leaned into the touch. She silently vowed to make the people responsible for the Project pay for hurting Chloe.

She wasn't sure yet if that included Gail.

* * *

 **PART TWO**

"What happened next, Gail?" Aubrey asked hoarsely after a long pause.

Gail prepared her next words carefully. "Chloe closed her eyes. A second later, I was slammed against the wall. The objects that were levitating around us suddenly shot in all directions—they even broke the bulletproof glass shielding the others. Our bodies moved against our will, flying across the room. I hit my head quite hard and passed out. I woke up a day later in the hospital. The same agent that had approached us about the Project debriefed me within the first hour I was awake. The Project was cancelled and all traces of it ever existing would have to be removed from this world, and they were to continue looking into _other_ sources of alternative energy. They hoped that AMG would be interested in cooperating again in the future."

Gail shook her head. "But at that point I didn't care about any of that because both you and Jack were gone from my world."

"I killed my—your husband?" Chloe said, sounding more upset about that than she had been about her torture.

"No, you didn't. And this is where I explain what I said earlier, that you were not yourself," Gail said clearly. Her tone was suddenly stronger and more purposeful. "In the two times you truly lost control of your powers, it wasn't _just_ your powers you lost control of. Something that should exist only as a _part_ of you suddenly became _all_ of you."

"I don't understand..."

"The human being is believed to comprise of a body, a soul, and a heart," Gail explained, listing them with her fingers. "The body is the empty, physical vessel and the soul is what gives it consciousness and life. But you know how we sometimes say things like, ' _that person's got heart'_ or, romantically, ' _I'm giving you my heart_? _'_ "

They nodded.

"In those cases, the heart is used to mean 'spirit' or 'love,' or whatever emotion a person _feels_ but can't really explain. The heart is responsible for generating emotions, memories, aspirations, and the will—things that cannot be studied under the microscope, but are what make us human."

"So…" Aubrey began slowly, "what you're saying is, one of the three parts—Chloe's body, soul, or her heart—took over completely? And the other two were lost?" she added, remembering that Chloe was called both 'heartless' and 'Nobody' by the Professor. Perhaps he had literally meant no ' _body_.'

But Gail shook her head. "Not exactly. I just needed you to understand the concept of a heart first, because that is the cornerstone of everything that happened since then. But put that concept aside for a moment and consider this." She spoke the next words clearly and carefully. "Many beliefs, both ancient and scientific, posit a reality that runs on two fundamental forces. We call them many things today—positive and negative, yin and yang, push and pull, et cetera. The forces at work in the heart are simply called the _light_ and _dark_. And although you would think that having a purely light-filled heart is ideal, the principle of positive and negative, yin and yang is—"

"Balance," answered Beca.

"Correct," nodded Gail. "Both the light _and_ the dark constitute a healthy heart. But obviously, because of your tragic past," Gail motioned toward Chloe, "you didn't have the _healthiest_ of hearts. Your darkness overpowered your light."

"But don't we have moments in our lives when the darkness _does_ overpower the light?" asked Beca, being no stranger to it. "Depression, grief, and anger—these all make it difficult to see the light sometimes, but we learn to pick ourselves up. What was different about Chloe's heart?"

"I may have put it too lightly when I said that Chloe's darkness overpowered the light," said Gail. "The darkness _consumed_ her light. In other words, Chloe lost her heart _completely_ to the darkness within it."

Beca grew worried. "What does that mean—for Chloe?"

"It means that the burst of energy that killed Chloe's father was caused by the darkness attempting to take over while it was at its strongest. If they hadn't found Chloe and brought her to us as quickly as they did after she ran away, I believe things would have gotten much worse for her. But Chloe was comforted and treated with a psychiatrist so the darkness had waned for a while. It must have lessened even more when she was treated well for the most part of the Project until… that moment, right before I got slammed into the wall.

"The darkness had finally won and, well, Chloe effectively died," Gail ended bluntly.

The students all looked at Gail, then at Chloe—as though to reassure themselves that she was physically _there_ and thus had to be _alive_ —and then back to Gail to explain further.

"When the heart gets consumed by darkness, as Chloe's did, it leaves behind the body and the soul. Once separated from each other, the body and soul die. The heart, however, filled with darkness becomes a dark creature, ironically called a _Heartless_."

Jesse and Luke immediately turned to Beca. "Those things at the mansion were called Heartless, too, right?" asked Jesse.

"The ones you said were trying to break through," added Luke.

Beca nodded, although it didn't quite make sense yet. "Wait, so Chloe became a Heartless? Then who…?" She turned to Chloe beside her and shared her confused look.

"Maybe my Heartless was made separate from me?" suggested Chloe.

"Something like that, actually," affirmed Gail. "There are special cases wherein, if the person's heart prior to the change was strong enough, the light left in it can help the soul find its way _back_ to the body. And instead of both of them withering away unused, the soul takes command of the body and the result is an artificially conscious being called a Nobody."

"And Chloe—this Chloe in front of us—is a Nobody?" Aubrey asked, finally voicing out one of the questions she had be dying to ask.

"Yes."

Beca looked between Gail and Aubrey and shrugged. "Okay, so what does this—what changes exactly? Chloe is still Chloe to me."

"I have a question, too," said Jesse, raising his hand like a good pupil, earning him a scowl from Beca. "I thought Chloe's heart was pretty unhealthy. How is it possible that her heart was _strong_ enough for her soul to combine with her body again? Er, not that I don't appreciate you being here, Chlo—"

"That is actually something I have yet to figure out," admitted Gail. "It makes no sense that Chloe would have the strength of heart for her Nobody to be here with us right now, while at the same time creating a Heartless _that_ powerful."

"What do you mean?" furthered Jesse.

"The Heartless you fought at the mansion were small and relatively harmless," said Gail. ("Speak for yourself," Jesse muttered under his breath, rubbing his arm where the Heartless had cut him.) "The Heartless I saw Chloe become was incredibly powerful. Proportionately speaking, only a severe darkness could have created that. That much darkness in one heart… I can't imagine there being any light _at all_."

"Okay, so is that it?" said a rather crotchety Beca. "So Chloe's a Nobody. So what? That doesn't change how we feel about her."

Chloe gave Beca a grateful smile, which Beca returned by bringing their joined hands to her lips and kissing Chloe's knuckles comfortingly.

"I'm sure it doesn't, but I..." Gail trailed off absentmindedly, observing their interaction. "But I, um—I'm sorry," she said distractedly. "Something doesn't make sense and I can't help but voice it out."

"What is it?" Beca asked cautiously.

"Chloe's not supposed to have emotions," Gail said, as though it were obvious.

Everyone was silent for a while, as though expecting something more important, or rather, something less accusatory to follow Gail's statement.

"Because she lacks a heart," the woman explained plainly with half an eye roll. "The heart is responsible for generating emotions, remember? I had to manufacture memories and _import_ them into her consciousness just so she could have them. Chloe should have had _memories_ of emotions, but should not be able to express them herself genuinely. And yet you greeted me in tears and, well," she gestured at Beca and Chloe's intertwined hands, "the two of you seem to be doing fine in your… relationship."

Beca and Chloe exchanged looks before the latter said, "Well, when I was first let out of the mansion, I had trouble _feeling_ happiness... but now that you mention it, I had trouble feeling _any_ emotion. And then, one day," she gave Beca a loving smile, "Beca just made me feel."

Gail only hummed in reply, still looking between the two of them through narrowed eyes. It looked so much like a mom sizing up the date her daughter had brought home that the other students had to look away to hide their smirks.

"Um... so where were we?" Beca asked when the awkward silence had gone on for too long.

Gail finally stopped staring and cleared her throat. "Right. What do we do about Chloe, what changes... Well, this is where _you_ get to make a decision, Chloe. While I don't know how comfortable you are with the knowledge that you are essentially _not_ a whole person, I am obligated to tell you that there is a way for you to be whole again."

Chloe's expression gave nothing away. "How?"

"It involves releasing your heart from the darkness that consumed it so that it may return to your body and soul," said Gail. "And in order to do that you must destroy the Heartless that was created that day ten years ago."

"It isn't dead yet?" said Jesse. "I thought it was gone by the time you came to?"

"We never really _definitively_ knew what happened to it, but we all assumed my husband had something to do with the Heartless disappearing," said Gail. "But in any case, while you were out on the mission tonight, I had Cynthia Rose tell me everything that Beca experienced when she passed out." She turned to Beca. "You said you heard a thumping, right? Like someone was knocking on a door."

"More like banging on the door," the brunette replied.

"We believe it is Chloe's Heartless trying to get out from wherever my husband took it."

Eyebrows shot up.

"Trying to get out, huh," Jesse said slowly, not really as a question but not really as a statement either. "Is that... bad?"

"As I said, Chloe's Heartless is extremely powerful," said Gail, "not to mention the _other_ Heartless that would escape from that place should the door be broken down."

Beca remembered the growling and clawing of thousands of Heartless and shivered. "Yeah, we can't let that happen," she muttered, mostly to herself.

Chloe squeezed Beca's hand comfortingly, then turned to Gail. "So you want me to decide if I want to be whole again or not, which is essentially asking if I want to destroy my Heartless?"

"Given that you've developed into a person of your own just fine, I thought that maybe you wouldn't want to," said Gail. "Recovering your heart might also mean recovering old memories, memories that you'd rather not remember. I just wanted you to make the choice for yourself. It's the least I could do, considering everything that was done to you."

Chloe nodded slowly. "But if I choose _not_ to, then my Heartless is going to escape and kill even more people. Possibly you and the Professor."

"We at AMG are currently trying to find ways to, in a sense, _barricade_ that door," said Gail without a flinch at her hypothetical death. "If we can't kill your Heartless then we'll do our best to keep it at bay so you can live your life as it is now. Again, it's the least we could do."

Chloe took a deep breath. No one spoke for a while.

"I understand if you need time to—"

"Wait, why are you only telling us this now?" Beca interrupted, after stringing parts of the story together in her head. "If you'd known how to make Chloe whole again, why didn't you offer this to her sooner? Why did you brainwash her for ten years, wait for the Professor to have Luke and Aubrey take her away, and then wait _another three months_?"

Gail didn't look surprised at the question. "For many reasons, Beca. The first is that after we—and by 'we' I mean my team at AMG who discovered Chloe's Nobody days after the incident—learned _how_ to restore Chloe, we weren't sure if defeating the Heartless was enough to completely remove her darkness. Considering how _much_ darkness there was in Chloe's heart, we needed to be sure that it would not be able to take control of Chloe's heart ever again if she were to be whole once more."

"So you implanted false but _happy_ memories in my empty consciousness," said Chloe, catching on to Gail's plan, "to create artificial light."

Gail nodded. "I should apologize for not giving you a choice, but I thought it was what's best for everyone."

"And then ten years later?" prodded Beca.

"The memory implants proved very difficult, very tedious, and very _slow_ to accomplish. We didn't use a special ability or _magic_ to get it done; we used good old-fashioned psychology. It already took almost three years to develop the method, and even longer for the import. Not to mention, with my husband gone, my resources were split between that and AMG's regular business operations," continued Gail. "But I was confident that, once the implanted memories eventually caught up to your actual age, you would be able to live a _normal_ life. And I must admit that I was tempted to just leave it at that…"

"You wanted to raise me as your own daughter," Chloe said understandingly. "Without any memories of being part of that Project."

"Yes," Gail confessed sheepishly. "But the process took longer, much longer, than I had hoped. And I honestly did not know that John was on a similar path. We had split up after all our research was incinerated and we were advised to avoid contacting each other for at least a few years. I kept _your_ existence much more secret than the original Project, only this time I vowed to make _sure_ you would never be hurt.

"But then, somehow through his own research, John discovered that you had a Nobody and that I had found it first, and he instructed Aubrey and Luke take you from my facility. I confronted him the next day—that was the video that you saw," she added with a nod toward Aubrey, "and I ended up having to let Chloe go, if just for a while."

"You said you intended to restore Chloe so she could get her powers back and you could _resume_ the Project," Aubrey pointed out accusingly, reminding herself not to let her guard down yet. "Did you want to raise Chloe to live a normal life, or did you want to raise Chloe to make the Project go successfully a second time around?"

"I lied to John," Gail said simply. "Or rather, John _assumed_ that I wanted to resume the Project. Even after I told him outright that I wasn't recreating the Project, when I mentioned that I was filling Chloe with light memories, he still asked if he thought that would help."

"So?"

"He asked if it would help Chloe be free from darkness _after_ she was restored. You see, John always had a one-track mind. He never considered the possibility that Jack and I could care more about Chloe than the Project itself, despite its beneficial implications. And John was _all about_ the implications. Believe me or not, I never intended to resume the Project—heck, I couldn't care less if Chloe ever showed her powers again! I only agreed to work with John because I needed someone to help defeat Chloe's Heartless if or when the time came. John was leading the research in that particular area... Plus, he has his super-trained students while I have my small team of soldiers, which you easily wiped out that night," she added with a sigh.

The four students exchanged slightly smug and proud looks in spite of themselves.

"So if you're calling us in now, that means you've figured it out how to defeat Chloe's Heartless without his help?" asked Aubrey.

"That, _and_ I was alarmed by what Beca saw," said Gail. "It seems that Chloe's Heartless is getting more aggressive, which is why I need an answer from you soon, Chloe."

"Out of curiosity, how _do_ you defeat Chloe's Heartless?" asked Luke.

"With Beca's Keyblade."

Everyone turned to Beca, who raised her eyebrows. "You know about the Keyblade?"

"What's a Keyblade?" Aubrey and Chloe asked in unison. Beca tried materializing the blade to show everyone, but she couldn't and ended up just waving her hands in the air dumbly.

"We don't know the exact science of it," Gail began after Beca stopped trying, "but it's the key to defeating all Heartless in general. Cynthia Rose mentioned how much easier it was to fight the Heartless after you got the Keyblade. Did you notice that?"

Beca nodded.

"That is because the Keyblade has the unique ability to lock and unlock hearts. Rather than simply destroying the vessel like you did the first time you encountered Heartless, the Keyblade releases the darkness and frees the heart," explained Gail. "And defeating Chloe's Heartless needs the unlocking of a seriously messed up heart. No offense, Chloe."

Chloe waved away the apology. "So when you found out that Beca got the Keyblade…" she prodded.

"I made a split-second decision to call you in before John found out," said Gail. "I don't know why exactly. To be honest, I don't even have a solid plan in mind—I just know that I don't trust him and I wanted you to know the truth before you're faced with the decision about your Heartless."

Nobody spoke for a while after that. Some, like Beca and Jesse, were trying to stomach the brutal experiences Chloe must have had. While Jesse was focused on it being a worrying example of what their lives would be like if their powers were made public, Beca was still reeling from the injustice. The others, however, were curious as to how powerful Chloe's Heartless was. Nevertheless, every single one of them was contemplating the road ahead; it didn't matter that they weren't the ones making the decision, they all somehow knew that their part in this wasn't over.

After a few minutes, Jesse yawned widely and glanced at his watch. Though they had been unconscious for the past few hours, it was still midnight and their body clocks hadn't adjusted. Learning everything about Chloe was pretty emotionally exhausting, too.

Trying to hide her own tiredness, Gail offered, "Maybe you'd prefer to make the decision tomorrow? If you want, you can stay overnight at my place in Westchester. I'd love to have you over, since it gets pretty lonely up there." Gail raised her eyebrows at Aubrey's calculating look. "You still don't trust me?"

Aubrey looked around at the tired faces of her comrades and sighed. "Fine. But I'll have more questions on the way there."

* * *

The helicopter ride to Westchester County was, not surprisingly, livelier than the ride to New York. Jesse had his face pressed against the window to admire the lights of the city that never sleeps, while Aubrey and Luke conversed in low voices, discussing what she saw in the video and their changing opinion of the Professor. Occasionally, Aubrey would turn to Gail for some clarification.

("Why Atlanta?" she asked Gail, who confessed that it really was for insurance in case Chloe did get her powers back and she had no way to stop her. She didn't find Stacie and Cynthia Rose until years later.)

Beca had Chloe curled into her side, sound asleep, while Stacie and Cynthia Rose explained their back-stories and how they came to be Gail's agents.

Stacie had been on her way to Juilliard to pursue dancing when it became evident that she was using her special abilities to enhance her skill. Stacie recalled being able to control and hide her powers so well at a young age that she never needed to make her powers public. When her auditions roused suspicion, Stacie had planned to escape to join some obscure ballet in Eastern Europe but was intercepted by Gail, who used her influence and contacts to end the investigation.

Cynthia Rose, on the other hand, already had her fair share of dealing with the authorities. Her gambling addiction had gotten way out of control after she'd turned to loan sharks for more money and, when realizing that she couldn't pay up, attempted to use her abilities to personally take the loan sharks off her back. It was unsuccessful and so, with a bounty out for her head by one of the toughest mob bosses in America, she joined a traveling magic show doing card tricks under a fake identity. Gail also caught wind of Cynthia Rose's activities and paid off her debt.

That had all happened about two or three years ago. Stacie and Cynthia Rose were the first special individuals—or mutants, as Stacie liked to call herself—that Gail took in. Though they had already mastered their abilities, Gail had taught them to work as agents and gave them a better purpose. The two had nothing but respect for her, for what she did for them and for society in general.

Beca occasionally glanced toward Gail throughout their tale, and in those moments she contemplated whether she should trust this woman. She couldn't shake the thought that Gail didn't give off the same uncomfortably mysterious aura the Professor had when she first met _him_. And if what she heard Aubrey whisper to Luke angrily was true ("He didn't even remember her name when he asked us to _rescue_ her!"), then Gail had shown more remorse for what the Project did to Chloe than the Professor ever did.

* * *

A few minutes later, they arrived at a large, elegant Colonial house in the affluent Westchester County. It wasn't as luxurious as the Barden mansion, considering the difference in their occupants, but with its sprawling gardens and what Beca believed was a _tennis court_ , there was no doubt to whomever would pass by that the owner of this place was extremely well off.

Beca rolled her eyes at how unfair it was that the slimiest people in the world were also the richest, but then she reminded herself that Gail built her fortune before the Project began. They crowded around the front porch while Gail located her keys. Once the doors were opened to them, Beca supported a half-asleep Chloe into the foyer, following behind everyone else. Again, it wasn't as grand as Barden's, but Gail's home was a lot cozier.

"Well, there are five bedrooms. Obviously the master's on the ground floor is mine, although I don't mind sharing," she added with a shrug. "There's another one down here and three upstairs. There's a bathroom down here and two more upstairs. Oh, and I called ahead and had my housekeeper lay out some extra clothes if you need them. And don't worry about breakfast, I'll take care of it." They all looked at her sheepishly as thanks for her overly eager hospitality. "So… I guess you guys should decide amongst yourselves on how you want to share the rooms."

"I'm with Chloe," Beca said automatically.

"Of course," smirked Jesse. "Well, Bree, looks like you and I—"

"Don't even think about it," Aubrey cut him off with an eye roll. "You're staying with Luke."

Jesse's face fell. "What? Oh, come on! You'd rather sleep alone than with me?"

"She won't be alone," Stacie stepped in. "She'll be with me."

Nobody missed the red that tinged Aubrey's cheeks. Beca raised an eyebrow. "What's going on with you two?" she asked in a teasing tone she saved for special occasions (annoying Aubrey), earning her a glare from the blonde.

"Oh, Aubrey's just embarrassed to be around me ever since I kissed her," Stacie shrugged offhandedly.

" _What?_ " Beca and Jesse cried simultaneously, although hers was in ecstatic amusement and Jesse's in pure shock. Luke, Cynthia Rose, and Gail merely chuckled, knowing how Stacie was.

"It was to get me to _sleep_ ," Aubrey growled irritably before trudging toward the stairs.

"I better go calm her down." Stacie winked at Jesse, who was shooting daggers from his eyes, before following Aubrey up the stairs.

"Come on, mate," ushered Luke, throwing his arm around Jesse's shoulder. "You'll get her next time."

"I can't believe I'm facing competition from _two_ people now," he grumbled as Luke led him to search for the other ground floor bedroom.

Their departure left Gail, Cynthia Rose, Beca, and Chloe remaining in the foyer.

"After you," bowed Cynthia Rose, offering the couple first choice.

"Actually, if you girls don't mind," started Gail. "I'd like to show Chloe your room."

Chloe raised her head from Beca's shoulder and exchanged looks with her girlfriend. "Sure," she shrugged.

Gail smiled and led the way upstairs. They passed the first bedroom, where they heard Aubrey yell from the en suite bathroom, "Stacie! Get out, I'm trying to take a shower!" And after giggling past that and saying goodnight to Cynthia Rose as they passed her room, the three reached the end of the hallway. Gail opened the door to a large, white (although a much nicer and homier white than the one in Chloe's room at the abandoned mansion) room with shiny hardwood floors. The room had an air of never having been lived in and was decorated with pink furniture and pink curtains, which caused Beca to raise an eyebrow.

"This is… nice," she said, not wanting to be rude to their host, but also internally cringing at how girly the room was. Chloe giggled.

"Sorry about all the pink," said Gail with a hearty laugh. "This was actually the room Jack and I had prepared for you, Chloe, when we first thought you would be living with us."

Chloe gave Gail a grateful smile before going over to the small alcove by the window where a bench was laden with stuffed animals, most of them rabbits. "Wow, I was really into bunnies, huh?"

Gail chuckled. "As we got to know you more over the first few months, we started filling the room with things you liked," she said, "hoping that someday when the Project ended, you'd want to come live with us."

"That's really sweet," said Chloe. "Thank you."

Gail continued to watch Chloe wander around the room before she backed up into the hallway. "Well, I'll let you guys turn in," she said with a wave. "Good night."

Once Gail had shut the door behind her, the first thing Beca and Chloe both did, now that they were alone together after everything that happened that night, was to let out a deep breath. Then Beca walked over and took Chloe's hands in hers. "Are you okay?" she asked, placing a soft kiss on Chloe's lips and wrapping her arms around her.

"Yeah, I think so," Chloe replied, resting her chin on Beca's shoulder.

They stayed in that position for a while, letting the evening sink in. And moments later, as they lay on the bed and in each other's arms, Beca fought to stay awake just in case Chloe would suddenly want to talk about it. She replayed Gail's confession over and over in her head and tried to think of a way for things to make it easier on Chloe.

"I can hear you thinking, Becs," Chloe whispered in the dark. "Go to sleep."

"Can't," Beca whispered back.

Chloe shifted to lie on her side and face Beca. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Beca chuckled, mirroring Chloe's position. "That's _my_ line. Are you sure there's nothing _you_ want to talk about? You did receive pretty life-changing news tonight."

Chloe shrugged. "I dunno. I feel okay. Maybe it's just me not having emotions."

"Don't," Beca chastised, bringing her face closer to Chloe's. "Don't say that. You _do_ have emotions."

"Maybe. But I still don't have a heart," Chloe replied matter-of-factly.

Beca had nothing to say to that, and she felt a pang in her chest when Chloe looked down, hurt, at finding out that Beca had no words to comfort her. Desperate and tired, Beca could only wonder aloud, "But does having a heart really make any difference?"

Chloe frowned in disbelief. "What are you saying? Of course it does."

"I don't know… I mean, think about it. We've only known each other for, like, three months, but in that time I already—" Beca stopped herself when she realized where this was going.

"You already what?" Chloe asked, not as oblivious to Beca's near slip-up as the brunette would have hoped.

"Uh, feel an emotional connection with you." Beca cleared her throat awkwardly. "It's just… it's not so easy for me to feel this way about someone, and you made me feel it so quickly. It's hard to believe you don't have a heart. Every bit of you is as _real_ as real gets—for me. You may not have a heart metaphorically or whatever, but you were _never_ less of a person in my eyes."

By the end of Beca's speech, Chloe's had eyes filled with adoration and grateful tears. Chloe closed the gap already small between them and pressed her lips against Beca's, who closed her eyes to preserve the moment, like every other time she had kissed Chloe, in her memory.

 _Anyone who doubts Chloe has emotions ought to try kissing her_ , she thought indignantly. _Although I probably wouldn't like that..._

Chloe curled back into Beca's embrace after they broke their kiss. Feeling assured and pleased that she had helped lighten Chloe's mood, Beca found it easier to just let sleep crawl over her. Just before they fully drifted off to sleep, however, Chloe couldn't resist asking once more.

"You already what, Beca?"

Even in her semi-conscious state, Beca already had the words prepared.

"Love you."

* * *

A/N: I'll let it end on a light note as an apology for the possible information overload. I purposely didn't split this into two chapters despite its length because I wanted everything out there before the final act begins. I also feel like I should apologize for giving Stacie and Cynthia Rose's back stories just one paragraph each, but origin stories are so Hollywood, don't you think so?


	8. Breakfast at Gail's

**Chapter Eight: Breakfast at Gail's**

Beca woke up alone in bed a few hours later and upon realizing that, she threw the covers off hurriedly and sprinted out into the empty hallway, forcing her thumping heart to relax. Despite being almost ten o'clock in the morning, the second floor seemed unnaturally quiet. Beca stopped in front of Aubrey's door and opened it cautiously to check if she was all right. The sight of Stacie spooning a still-asleep Aubrey calmed her paranoia, since it probably meant that Gail hadn't kidnapped Chloe in the middle of the night.

Shaking her head at how unreasonable she was being, Beca let out one quiet snigger at her newly acquired blackmail material before closing the door softly. Now that she was less suspicious of any wrongdoing, she endeavored to find Chloe instead.

 _She must be around here somewhere._

Beca airlifted herself down stairs and felt her toes hit the marble floor when the heavenly smell of bacon wafted into her nostrils and the twinkling music of Chloe's laughter reached her ears.

 _Of course, she's in the kitchen._

Beca couldn't even bring herself to roll her eyes at how drastically opposite they were to each other (despite being raised by a working single mother, Beca was useless in the kitchen) because 'morning Chloe' was probably in her top five favorite Chloes.

Gail greeted her with a "Good morning" when she saw Beca standing at the entrance to the kitchen. She was laying freshly cooked bacon onto a plate, standing on the other side of the kitchen island from Chloe, who had her back to Beca. The redhead spun around, revealing her busy egg-beating hands, to smile at Beca. "Good morning!" she chirped brightly before turning back to focus on her work.

Beca approached her cheerful girlfriend from behind and planted a quick kiss to her temple—their usual morning greeting ritual, since this wasn't the first time Beca had woken up to find Chloe already awake at either the breakfast table or in the Barden kitchens. "Good morning. Whatcha making?"

"Omelets," Chloe grinned in reply. "Do you want some orange juice?"

"I'll have a coffee but I'll get it myself," she insisted, moving toward the pot. She then eyed the eggs carefully. "You know you make the worst omelets, right?"

"Hey!" Chloe pouted, tossing a small tomato cube at Beca. "They aren't _that_ bad!"

Beca caught the piece of tomato in a tiny ball of air just before it fell to the ground and floated it into her mouth. "Babe, they were _crispy_. I don't even know how you managed that."

Gail laughed when Chloe stuck her tongue out at Beca. " _Anyway_ , Gail is teaching me how to make her world-famous omelets."

"World famous?" Gail raised an eyebrow, looking up from where she was sprinkling powdered sugar on a long plate of French toast.

"Okay, I added the 'world famous' part," shrugged Chloe. "But they're really good! Here, try."

Chloe cut a piece off a half-eaten omelet with a fork and fed the egg dish to Beca. " _Mm_ ," the brunette moaned emphatically. "Wow, Gail, that _is_ good."

"Thanks," smiled Gail, surprised yet delighted that Beca was not treating her coolly considering everything Gail revealed she had done to her girlfriend. She chuckled when Beca opened her mouth wide as a way to ask for another bite, which Chloe happily obliged.

"If you actually learn how to make this, I'll marry you in an instant," Beca joked through a mouthful of omelet, her eyes closed in bliss as she chewed. "Just so I could have this every morning."

"Challenge accepted," laughed Chloe.

* * *

Gail marveled at how naturally domestic things already were between Beca and Chloe. From what she had learned during all those marketing pitches at AMG, young people their age were normally terrified of commitment—not to mention the fact that Beca and Chloe had only known each other for all of three months—but there Beca was, looking at Chloe with the eyes of someone seeing their future.

It was strange but comforting, and it made Gail wonder if Chloe would decide to keep things the way they were and choose to remain a Nobody. While Gail was a hundred percent committed to handing Chloe the decision on what to do about her Heartless—even to go so far as to _protect_ it from John should he go after it himself—she was the only one who knew how difficult it would really be to keep the Door to Darkness shut. She didn't want to alarm the students last night, but she was certain that what Beca had heard was a sign that the Door was ready to give.

But she would still do it for Chloe, even if it meant never finding out if Jack was also behind that Door.

* * *

Meanwhile, in their shared bedroom upstairs, Aubrey had woken up abruptly to find an arm wrapped loosely around her waist. She scanned the arm with her eyes from its fingers right up to its owner's shoulder until she realized whom she had decided (or rather, was forced) to share a room with.

"Stacie," she hissed, and then realized there was no reason to be quiet. She cleared her throat and said a little louder, " _Stacie._ "

Aubrey twisted around, placing Stacie's arm back in its proper (Aubrey-approved) place, and propped herself up on her elbow to lightly poke the sleeping brunette on the shoulder.

Stacie blinked her eyes open slowly. They were a little red around the corners from insufficient sleep, but in this position Aubrey could easily see Stacie's greyish blue-green eyes up close for the first time. Stacie then groaned, rolled onto her back, and covered her eyes with her forearm. "Was it good for you?" she mumbled.

"What?" frowned Aubrey, half-wondering if Stacie was still dreaming.

"The sex," Stacie answered in a sleepy tone but the twitching corners of her mouth betrayed her humor. "I think I fell asleep in the middle of it, but if you got yours—"

"You're unbelievable."

"Thanks. I wish I could say the same about you last night though."

Aubrey rolled her eyes and swung her legs off the bed. She reached for her watch on the bedside table and nearly choked on her own gasp when she saw the time. "Oh my God, it's almost ten!" she cried, jumped off the bed, and automatically began making it. "I've never slept in this late in my life—"

"Really? Never?" Stacie asked skeptically, taking her own precious time sliding off her side of the bed.

"Never. If you're not ten minutes early, you're already late," Aubrey huffed, running back and forth from the vanity to the bathroom, to fix her hair and brush her teeth.

Stacie frowned. "Late for what?"

Aubrey paused in front of the mirror. There was technically no reason to be in a hurry, since they had never agreed on a time for breakfast, but it was just unnatural for her to _not_ be up and managing the Barden mansion at this time, so Aubrey ignored Stacie's sound logic and continued getting ready.

"' _If you're not ten minutes early, you're already late_ ,'" recited Stacie, leaning against the bathroom door's frame and smirking at Aubrey as she brushed her teeth. "What is that, your daily mantra or something?"

Aubrey once again rolled her eyes and spat out the toothpaste. "It's something my father used to say."

"He sounds strict," remarked Stacie. "Is that why you're so uptight?"

"I'm not up—"

Stacie silenced Aubrey's retort with a look that clearly asked, 'Are you fucking kidding me?'

"I'm _discerning_ ," said Aubrey, moving aside to let Stacie use the sink.

"Those aren't synonyms but, seriously, you've got to loosen up a bit… Er, is this yours?" She held up a white and slightly damp disposable toothbrush to Aubrey, who nodded. Stacie looked around the bare sink and turned back to Aubrey with a guilty look. "Okay, don't freak out but I think you and I shared a toothbrush last night."

Aubrey gagged. "Jesus Christ!"

"Sorry," grimaced Stacie. "I'll go open a new one then."

When Stacie walked back into their room minutes later, Aubrey was fully dressed and fixing her hair in front of the vanity. She saw Stacie's reflection pull a shirt over her head, leaving her in nothing but her underwear. Aubrey's eyes widened before they pointedly looked away. "Stacie, I can _see_ you in the mirror."

"I know."

Aubrey could tell the brunette was smirking. "Do you know how inappropriate this is?"

"What? This is normal! Haven't you ever had sleepovers or shared a room with girl friends?"

"No," Aubrey replied flatly.

Stacie pulled on jeans and a top from the getaway bag she had brought from Barden and walked over to the vanity. She leaned over Aubrey's shoulder to check herself out in the mirror and asked, "Did you live your whole life at Barden or something?"

"No," repeated Aubrey. "Only half. And there weren't much girls at the institute so I didn't have many girl friends."

"How about boyfriends?"

Aubrey raised her eyebrow.

"What?" Stacie defended. "You're hot. It's hard to imagine no one's tried to hit that yet."

"Do you have to be so _crass_ all the time?"

"Do you have to dodge my questions all the time?" Stacie retorted in the same tone of voice.

"I haven't been dodging at all! I just don't like the way the last one was asked."

Stacie rolled her eyes. "Okay, I'll ask again. Aubrey, have you ever had a boyfriend?"

Pause.

"No," Aubrey said, trying hard not to blush at the fact that she's almost twenty-one and still never had a boyfriend.

"Have you ever been on a date?"

Pause.

"Does a—?"

"If you have to ask if it counts, then it doesn't count."

"Then no."

"Not even with Luke?" Stacie asked, sounding surprised.

"For God's sake, do I have to wear a shirt that says 'No, Luke and I don't like each other _that_ way' for you people to get that we're never getting together?"

"Is that how you really feel?"

" _Yes._ "

"Is that how Luke really feels?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Aubrey repeated exasperatedly. "He said if he liked me then he would have done something about it years ago."

"And how does that make you feel?" Stacie questioned. "That he _didn't_ do something about it years ago?"

Aubrey glared at the brunette, who by this point in the conversation had squeezed herself beside her in the tiny vanity chair to apply make-up. "Not funny," Aubrey said dryly, facing the mirror to continue fixing her hair.

"Okay, then what about Jesse?"

"What about him?"

"Oh, come on, you _know_ the guy likes you."

"Yeah, and?"

It was Stacie's turn to raise an eyebrow. "And you don't?"

"I barely know Jesse."

"I've seen people hit it off after a blind date. And you guys are friends, aren't you?"

"Stacie, what's your point?" Aubrey stood up, finding there was no space to turn and glare at the woman taking half her seat. "Are you saying I won't be happy unless I'm in a relationship? For your information, I don't need a man— _or a woman_ ," she added when Stacie opened her mouth mischievously, "in my life to be fulfilled."

"You misunderstand me," Stacie said, holding up a pacifying hand. "My point is, Jesse is not going to be the only person who falls head over heels for you. At some point you have to let someone in. Not for their sake, but for yours."

Aubrey stared at Stacie for a moment before blurting out, "Is this a joke about sex again?"

Stacie threw her an annoyed look. "I'm capable of talking about things other than sex, you know. And you're hair is fine—quit obsessing over it," she added, when she saw Aubrey pull at a loose strand.

Aubrey straightened up and huffed. "Fine. Let's go. We should at last help prepare breakfast."

"Yes, dear," sighed Stacie.

* * *

In the downstairs bedroom, Luke was putting on a powder blue button-down shirt Gail's housekeeper had left in the wardrobe. In the bed across the room, Jesse was still lying, asleep. Luke took his watch from the bedside table and noticed the time while slipping in on. "Come on, mate, it's time to get up," he said, pulling the drapes open to let the sunlight flood the room.

Jesse groaned and buried his face in his pillow.

"You don't want to miss breakfast, do you?"

Jesse lifted his head immediately. "I'm up," he muttered, blinking the sleep away. His brown eyes darted around the room until he saw that the other half of the bed he was lying on was neatly made. He looked up at Luke, fully dressed and grooming himself in front of the mirror. "If anyone asks, I slept on the floor," he told his blond roommate. "I did the _honorable thing_ and slept on the floor."

Luke chuckled. "Is there something wrong with sleeping togeth—?"

"We did _not_ sleep together! We slept on the same bed. Those have different meanings in _American_ English."

Luke only laughed in reply, choosing not to mention that he'd lived in the U.S. since he was nine years old. Jesse jumped up and carelessly made his side of the bed. "There are some clothes in the wardrobe if you want to change," Luke informed him when he had finished.

"Awesome. This place is like a five-star hotel."

"Hurry up and get ready. Remember, if you're not ten minutes early—"

"I'm already late!" finished Jesse, disappearing into the hallway. "Holy crap!" he exclaimed the moment he stepped through the bathroom door, which opened to the coolest bathroom he had ever seen. The bathtub was the size of a small hot tub and had just as many nozzles; the mirror took up an entire wall, and the toilet was an almost literal throne.

"There's a _steam shower_?" he gawked, already pulling off his clothes. "I gotta try that."

In their bedroom across the hall, Luke had just finished getting his hair in the coiffed, I-woke-up-like-this look he wanted and decided to head to the kitchen to help with breakfast. The smell of bacon that wafted in when Jesse opened the door had triggered his appetite.

He walked into the kitchen to find Chloe and Gail laughing at something Beca must have said. "Good morning, ladies," he greeted them politely, and then noticed the absence of a particularly early riser. "No Aubrey?"

"Nope," Beca replied gleefully, popping the 'p.' "Miss Ten Minutes Early is now Miss Already Late."

"Can it, Beca," yelled a voice from the foyer. "I'm here."

"Again, there's _really_ nothing to be late for," followed an exasperated voice, undoubtedly Stacie's.

"Good morning!" Chloe greeted them cheerfully, throwing her hands in the air in celebration. "Isn't Cynthia Rose with you?"

"Right here, Red." Cynthia Rose waved as she entered the kitchen through the patio door.

Beca scowled and said, "Hey, don't call her that." When everyone turned to Beca in surprise, she mumbled, "It makes it less special when _I_ call her that."

Everyone laughed. "Aww," Chloe cooed, wrapping her arms around Beca's waist and pulling her closer. "Don't worry, babe, it's _only_ special when it comes from you. But if you want, you can call me something else, like… gingerbread?"

Beca made a face. "But I hate gingerbread," she admitted, and immediately regretted doing so when Chloe's face fell and her bottom lip quivered. "I-I'm sorry! I don't hate it—I think I can get used to gingerbread!" Beca blurted out worriedly.

Stacie made a show of looking around the floor concernedly. "Has anyone seen Beca's spine?" she said, generating more laughter from everyone except Beca.

Chloe laughed and squeezed Beca comfortingly. "I was just kidding, baby," she consoled. "But for future reference, I really do like gingerbread cookies."

"Ditto," nodded Stacie. "They're awesome."

"What? They're cookies made of _ginger._ That's _gross_ ," Beca said in disbelief, before whipping her head back to Chloe. "That is _not_ a reflection on you or your tastes."

Chloe rolled her eyes playfully.

"They're not made of _just_ ginger," argued Stacie. "They're actually sweet with just the right amount of spicy. Just like me," she added with a wink in Aubrey's direction.

"Yeah, that's not going to make me like them more," said Beca, missing the interaction on account of having Chloe's fingers dancing around her back.

Aubrey shook her head in amusement. "Beca's way too stubborn. She's not going to change her mind until she actually eats a gingerbread cookie."

"Too bad it's not Christmas yet," shrugged Cynthia Rose.

"Actually…" Gail walked over to the pantry and checked. "Aha!" she exclaimed triumphantly and brought back a container of small brown cookies shaped into gingerbread men.

"Ooh!" Everyone (including a hesitant Beca) took a cookie.

"How old are these?" Aubrey asked suspiciously, inspecting the cookie closely between her fingers.

"Relax, I made them a week ago," said Gail. "I had a sudden craving."

Chloe took a bite and gave a satisfied moan. "These taste just like my—" She made eye contact with a sheepish Gail and realized the reason the cookies tasted so familiar. "Oh... right."

An awkward silence ensued, which was tactfully broken by Stacie putting the cookies away and saying, "Well, we wouldn't to spoil our appetites for breakfast…"

"Speaking of breakfast," Beca added, quickly following suit. "I'm starving. Where the hell is Jesse?"

"I'll go get him," Luke offered hastily as an excuse to leave the room.

"And we'll set the table," Cynthia Rose offered, taking Aubrey—whose eyes were darting between Chloe and Gail—by the arm and dragging her toward the dining room to take out the place settings.

Beca put a gentle hand on Chloe's shoulder and looked at her cautiously. Chloe smiled and gave a small shrug to indicate that she was okay, then she wordlessly asked Beca to help set the table to give her a private moment with Gail in the kitchen. Beca nodded and followed Aubrey out of the kitchen.

"I'm sorry," Gail said immediately, after Stacie followed Beca out and the two were alone.

Chloe shook her head. "It's not your fault. I sort of brought it on myself anyway," she added with a laugh. Then she bit her lower lip nervously. "For the record, I appreciate what you did."

Gail perked up. "What?"

"For what you did for me after the Project—and even during. You gave me a childhood, and a pretty great one," smiled Chloe. "So, thank you."

Gail returned her smile. "It was truly my pleasure, Chloe. But... do you regret that I told you they weren't real?"

Chloe shrugged. "They may not have been real, but I don't doubt for a second that things would have been exactly the same if I were your daughter," she said. She thought about those childhood memories, the ones she remembered telling Beca about, and felt glad that Gail had been the one to find her. "You'd be a great mother, Gail."

The woman let out a shaky and relieved breath. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "That really means a lot."

Chloe opened her arms for a hug. "For old fake-memories time's sake?" she said with a giggle.

* * *

Stacie smiled from where she was secretly listening in, behind the arch connecting the kitchen to the hallway. She knew how much Gail longed for a daughter, and even though Gail had treated her and Cynthia Rose as daughters ever since she recruited them, she knew that Chloe was the one Gail had spent years literally making memories with. The fact that Chloe acknowledged, and was even thankful for, it was a good sign.

Stacie turned to her left, down the hallway, where she could faintly hear Luke and Jesse talking. "What's taking them so long?" she wondered aloud.

Stacie took one long step to their bedroom door and peeked inside. Luke had his back facing the door and his hands on his hips while Jesse was in front of the mirror with towels around his waist and neck. Neither of them noticed the top half of Stacie's head poking in the room.

"—making everybody wait for you," Luke was saying in a patient but scolding tone.

"Sorry, I couldn't resist taking a bath," Jesse apologized, not sounding sorry at all as he ran a towel over his head to dry his hair. "Right after I tried the steam shower."

Luke threw his hands up in defeat. Then he cocked his head to the side and said, "Have you been working out? Other than the exercises I prescribed, of course. You look good."

 _Oh?_ Stacie stretched her neck a little further in to chance a glance at Jesse's bared torso. _His abs and pecs do look more defined than they did at the party,_ she observed. _He's gotta work on his obliques though._

"Dude, it's _really_ weird that you're complimenting my body right now, especially considering—"

"Considering what? I thought we agreed we didn't sleep together."

Biting back a choke, Stacie decided that this was a perfect time as any for her to step in. "Well, well," she said, her voice wavering and her face pink with barely controlled glee. "Did my dreams just come true or did I _not_ just walk into the opening scene of a gay porno?"

"Stacie!" Jesse yelped, dashing to hide behind the drapes. "Get out!"

Luke blinked at the spot where Jesse used to be and roared in laughter when he saw two towels on the floor trailing after him. He turned to Stacie and waved his hand at the scene in front of them. "A little help here?"

Stacie crossed her arms. "If your ass is not at the table in thirty seconds, Swanson, I'm telling everyone I saw your disco stick," she warned. "And I _won't_ be generous."

Luke was wiping tears of laughter out of his eyes by the time Stacie shut the door behind them. "And _that's_ how you get a guy like him to hurry," she smirked, dusting her hands.

"Not to shoot myself in the foot but I am surprised that you're not making a bigger deal out of the gay thing," Luke said amusedly. "That was quite an out-of-context conversation you overheard."

"Meh," Stacie shrugged, giving him a once over. "You always struck me as a guy who's confident with his sexuality."

"I am," he grinned.

"But for the record…?"

Luke shook his head.

"Okay then," nodded Stacie. "So you've dated a lot of women then?"

They arrived at the dining room, where the girls were simultaneously setting the table and serving each other food and drinks. Cynthia Rose was handing out the plates while Chloe distributed the toast, and Aubrey and Beca were arguing over the coffee maker while Gail looked on helplessly.

Luke patted Stacie on the shoulder. "Let's have this conversation another time," he said with a knowing grin.

"Oh, no, that's not—" Stacie started, worried that he got the wrong idea.

"I'm not interested in dating Aubrey," Luke muttered quietly so only she could hear, before giving her a kind smile and then rushing to the table to help out.

"There you guys are," said Beca, looking up from a ripped bag of coffee filters. "Jesse's _still_ not up?"

"I'm here! I'm here! Sorry for keeping you guys waiting!" Jesse came bounding into the room, his hair still dripping wet but looking otherwise presentable. He looked around at the food and said, "Breakfast at ten? Awesome!" and immediately took the seat beside Aubrey's.

* * *

Breakfast—or brunch, considering how late it was—was another comfortingly domestic event for Gail to witness. She was grateful when the kids ate heartily and nothing else about last night was brought up—other than the 'hottest topic' at the moment, Aubrey and Stacie's alleged relationship.

"So are you guys, like, together now?" Beca teased, giddy that Aubrey was on the receiving end of it for once.

"Oh, grow up. It was just a kiss," Aubrey rolled her eyes. "It wasn't even between two mutually consenting adults."

" _Sure_ it wasn't," Beca drawled, bobbing her head.

"Chloe can back me up. Stacie kissed me without warning, right, Chlo?"

Everyone turned to the redhead. "True," she admitted slowly. "But to be fair, I didn't see you pull away."

That caused a lot of cheering, mainly from Beca. The only ones not joining in were Aubrey and Jesse. "How could I? I was _unconscious!_ " she defended, her face turning even redder with either violent fury or embarrassment.

"Okay, okay," Stacie said, trying to contain her laughter. "I think she's had enough, you guys."

"Aww, Stacie's looking out for her bae," cooed Cynthia Rose, causing another round of laughs.

"Yeah, I agree with Aubrey," Jesse interrupted their laughter in a falsely nonchalant voice. "Knowing Stacie, it wasn't mutual. She was probably just being her natural flirty self."

A low chorus of "Ooooh" and Cynthia Rose's "Will the real Slim Shady please stand up" resounded through the dining room, and Gail just shook her head and laughed at how youthful they were all being.

Luke stopped mid-laugh to glance at his watch, which began to beep faintly, but loud enough for him to take notice. He looked at the display and saw a small GPS icon flashing. "Bree…" he said, holding up his watch to her.

Aubrey checked her own and frowned. She suddenly realized with a sinking feeling what the icon meant. "The Professor is tracking our location," she announced to the suddenly quiet room. "He knows we're not at Barden."

"Let him come," Gail said simply. "I've told you everything—the _truth_ , mind you. He can no longer hide or lie about it, and he has no reason to give for you to return to Barden unless you want to."

"But will we be safe here?" asked Jesse. "Won't be mad or anything if he finds out we've been talking to you?"

"I updated the security system this morning," informed Cynthia Rose. "If he enters the premises with so much as a molecule of gunpowder, his electronics will be disabled and the security team will be here in less than sixty seconds."

"He very well knows he can't come here with a flock of armed men," Gail assured them calmly. "He's probably just coming here to talk. After all, we're supposed to be working together."

"Maybe we need a back-up plan or safe house—just in case?" said Beca, feeling an inexplicable dread. "Something to do or someplace to go just in case shit goes down today."

The others nodded in unison and Gail felt that she could no longer assure them that they were safe in her home. She looked thoughtful for a moment before slipping off a silver ring with an emblem of an eagle on it from her finger. "Take this," she said, handing the ring to Stacie. "If things get out of hand, press on it."

"What is it?"

"It's a distress signal to the team behind the Project's cover up," explained Gail. "Our lawyers made sure that they wouldn't be allowed to conduct surveillance on us, so as a compromise we were given this to alert them of any incident involving the Project."

Beca glanced at the ring skeptically. "How can they help us?"

"Well, the first thing they will do once they see John making contact at my residence is to detain him. That will give you enough time to allow you to escape."

"Allow _us_ to escape?" repeated Beca. "What about you?"

"Considering the circumstances, once you press that ring, they will also need to take me. But you must leave _immediately,_ " Gail reiterated seriously. "Under no circumstances should you let them know Chloe is alive."

Everyone was silent, realizing that if worse comes to worst, in order to protect Chloe they would have to go on without Gail _and_ the Professor, the only two people who knew what needed to be done.

"Then we just have to make sure things don't get out of hand," Aubrey said bluntly, and everyone nodded in agreement.

"But even still, where would we go?" asked Jesse. "Back to Barden?"

"That depends..." Gail looked at Chloe. "Have you made a decision, Chloe?"

Chloe nodded firmly, surprising Beca and the others. They hadn't talked about it last night, so Beca assumed that Chloe was still mulling things over.

"I want to get rid of my Heartless," she declared. "I want to be whole again."

Gail seemed surprised but recovered quickly enough for no one to notice. She nodded. "Okay then. You all will need to find a way to get to the Door to Darkness, and confront Chloe's Heartless when it gets out… if it hasn't already."

"The beeping stopped," alerted Luke. "He's definitely on his way now."

"How _do_ we get to the Door to Darkness?" asked Beca, feeling her heart pump with excitement and anxiety.

Gail smirked. "I would have thought it was obvious; you go through a Corridor to Darkness."

"Oh." Beca thought back to the rip in the mansion. But before she could ask if she could find another one, Gail turned back to Chloe.

"Are you sure you want to do this now?" she asked. "There might be some time to work out a better plan."

"This is just in case you and the Professor get captured, right?" Chloe said breathlessly, wringing her hands nervously. "Besides, the longer I wait, the more likely my Heartless will hurt innocent people, so it would be my decision regardless. And like you said, we don't even know if it isn't already out. I want to end this now. It _has_ to end now."

Gail nodded solemnly. "Okay. We have a few hours before John gets here. Stacie, Cynthia Rose—"

Everyone stiffened as the sound of the doorbell suddenly cut her off.

"It can't be him, can it?" Jesse said nervously. Luke and Aubrey exchanged looks; they knew the Professor had resources, but no such plane on earth could get him there _that_ fast.

"If it _is_ him, he didn't set off the alarms," said Cynthia Rose. "Unless he somehow disabled them."

"Wouldn't it be funny if it was just the mailman?" Jesse joked, but his pale face betrayed his true emotions.

Gail rose from her chair. "Only one way to find out."

* * *

The students followed Gail to the foyer and were shocked to see the Professor himself, in the flesh, looking in through the window beside the door, waving at them and grinning from ear to ear. Rather than allay their worries, his cheerful demeanor in contrast to what they had learned the night before only reminded them what kind of man he could be.

"If I hadn't just learned what he's done, his smile wouldn't scare me so much," muttered Jesse. "With that said: good _God_ , he is terrifying."

"But it doesn't seem like he brought back up," Stacie noted, looking out through the other windows cautiously. "Maybe he really just wants to talk?"

Gail smoothened her skirt and opened the door. "Good morning, John. Please, come in."

"Why, thank you, Gail."

The polite exchange between former colleagues did not fool the students; they were on their guard, watching the Professor closely. "I see you've met my students," he said, making eye contact with five of them (he left out Stacie and Cynthia Rose). When they finally landed on Chloe, the corner of his mouth twitched vaguely. "And I assume you've told them everything?"

Beca fists clenched upon seeing the way the Professor was looking at Chloe. It may have just been her imagination, but the man was regarding Chloe as though she were an escaped lab mouse that he found amusing. She took a protective step forward to keep Chloe as far away from him as possible.

"I simply told them the truth, John," said Gail in a weary tone, as though she were tried of having this conversation even though it just started.

"And?" he smiled, opening his arms, wide and welcoming, at his students. "I'm sure you all have plenty to say to me."

Beca was speechless—as was everyone else around her. None of them could believe how cavalier this man was being, considering the despicable acts he had committed. To their surprise, however, the one to find her voice first was not who they expected.

"How dare you," came Aubrey's cold voice, quiet with fury. "After everything you've done… you just come here and—"

Luke put his hand on Aubrey's shoulder to calm her down. "We trusted you," was all he said to the man they had known and followed for almost half their lives.

Seeing his two favorite students so conflicted made the Professor's face fall slightly. "Of all the people, I would have expected the two of you to understand me the most," he said with an air of regret.

"How could we possibly understand a man who tortured an innocent girl!" cried Aubrey. She took a deep breath before asking, "Tell me, did you look into Chloe's eyes while you were doing it? And did you feel even an _ounce_ of remorse when you saw her again three months ago?"

Beca was taken aback by the intensity of Aubrey's emotions and how eloquently she was able to voice them, until she realized that, for her and Luke, after learning the man's history there would always be the question of whether it could have been _them_ strapped to the machine and forced to show their powers so they could be studied for the greater good. After all, the Professor would have started the Barden Institute only a few months after the incident with Chloe. Beca understood that, in that moment, what Aubrey was really asking the Professor was if he was the kind of man who would do it all over again if given the chance.

The Professor looked at Aubrey straight in the eye and gave a solemn pause before speaking again. "I suddenly remembered," he began, "a very compelling essay you wrote, once upon a time, in one of your social studies classes. It was about how history is written by the winners—the victors of the war, the conquerors of civilizations—and that this incomplete telling of events shapes how we think about, and understand, certain events in history. This desire for wishful storytelling has led us to want to simplify things, to make a 'good' narrative. Consequentially, historical figures are always simplified as being either good _or_ evil—"

"Oh, cut the bullshit, Prof."

Everyone turned in surprise to the unlikely source of the interruption: Stacie. She had been watching Aubrey closely throughout the Professor's lecture, ever since she became suspicious of why he was keeping laser-focus eye contact with Aubrey.

"If you're droning on just to say that the end justifies the means, you can shut up," the tall brunette said bitingly. Gail tried to hide her proud smirk; meanwhile, everyone else was realizing that they had almost been sucked into another one of the Professor's boring lectures. "We're not interested in hearing how you were unfairly portrayed as the 'bad guy' in all of this. There are some things that _are_ black and white, and what you did was obviously wrong."

The Professor leveled Stacie with a glare. "I was young," he said sharply, his lecturing voice gone. "I was at a turning point in my career and I wanted the Project to succeed. No, I am aware that that is not an excuse; but I am not asking for your forgiveness, I'm asking for your understanding."

"I think they understand, John," said Gail. "What they want now is justice."

The Professor nodded too quickly that it felt like mocking. "Then what would you have me do?" he asked. "Cause myself as much pain as I caused Chloe?"

"For starters," muttered Jesse.

"No," answered Chloe's clear and resolute voice. No one was surprised that Chloe wasn't seeking vengeance, but this was the first time she would face him directly after learning what he had done to her and everyone wanted to hear what she had to say to him. "I want you stop making decisions about my life or anyone else's. You can say that it all happened ten years ago, and that you've changed since then. But even after you took me away from the abandoned mansion you still kept the truth from me. So I want you to stop hiding what you're really up to because, I don't trust you. No one's trusts you... John."

An act that would seem trivial if done any other time than now, addressing the man by his name seemed to break whatever hold John Smith thought he had on Chloe's life. It were as though the man's enigmatic identity as a benevolent sympathizer to their special predicament dissolved, leaving only a flawed human being to whom they owed absolutely nothing. But in breaking that hold the symbolic act also meant that Chloe was forgiving him. As long as he stayed away from her and her friends and vowed never to experiment on people again, she wouldn't seek revenge or reparation, because that would only prolong her relationship with him. He may have taken it to this point, but she was in control of her own life now.

The Professor smiled lightly at the name. Whether he understood what it meant was unclear to everyone; he simply said, "No one trusts me… that is understandable." He went on to thoughtfully bob his head for a while until he asked a question that no one had ever thought to ask. "Do you know why I have my students call me 'Professor'?"

"We have no time for your tangents, _John_ ," Stacie replied instantly, now wary of his tactics.

"There were three Johns working on the Project," he continued, ignoring Stacie. "On one hand, I should have expected it, with John being such a common name for men in my generation. But on the other hand, you would be utterly devoid of whimsy not to have marveled at the odds that, out of a handful of individuals specially picked for a covert government operation, _three_ of them would be named 'John.'"

Nobody responded.

"Gail's husband was even named John," he said amusedly, as though sharing meaningless trivia, "but lucky for him he went by Jack. I once suggested that we call each other by our last names but because of all the secrecy we were hardly ever in the same room together so it didn't really matter in the end." He stuffed his hands into his pockets, oblivious to the people around him as he reminisced. "When I got the idea to start the Barden Institute, I was advised by my lawyers not to draw attention to myself, even from my former colleagues, so I adopted the title of 'the Professor'—since I was effectively going to be Headmaster of a school anyway—and found that it caught on quite nicely when I started to train special youngsters like you.

"My point, Miss Conrad," he said in a louder tone when Stacie had opened her mouth to interrupt again, "is that by the definition of the word I am _not_ a professor. I do not teach—the most teaching I had ever done prior to Barden was in giving advice to the White House over a decade ago. So if you're asking me, Chloe, to stop hiding what I'm up to, then this is it. I am not a professor. I am an economist, a businessman, and a pseudo-scientist. Ever since I learned about Chloe's powers and what they could do, I sought a way to be able to create and sell advanced technology out of it. I am hell-bent on changing the world but deep down I know it is only if I get credit for doing it.

"I won't hide it: I confess that I had every intention of restoring Chloe back to her former self so we could continue the Project. I went to great lengths—as did Gail—to ensure that this time around we would not make the same mistakes we did ten years ago. Now that you are aware of how grave those mistakes were, you may think that it is ruthless of me to say this, but I cannot stress enough how the implications of the Project's success could result in the greatest technological turning point in human history—more impactful than the steam engine, I'd wager. And because of this tantalizing promise and the possibility of having my name attached to it, I honestly can't say myself if I would or wouldn't use force if the need arise."

Everyone tensed at his last statement.

"Now, I know that's a lot of 'truth bombs' that I dropped, as you kids say," he gestured with air quotes, suddenly and inexplicably back to his affable self after that confession. "But I need you all to focus on this last one, it's a very important one and it's the reason I came here today." He turned to Gail and said in a dead serious tone, "Chloe's Heartless is out."

* * *

"Where?"

"Florida," John replied casually. He turned to Chloe and added, "In your old home."

They all exchanged looks—some scared, some determined.

"Things just got way too real way too soon, didn't they?" John sighed. "We didn't even have time to find the Keyblade wielder."

Before they could stop themselves, heads whipped to face Beca.

"Or _did_ we…?" John looked at her curiously. "Beca Mitchell... How ironic."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Beca asked with a scowl, not sure if she should feel insulted or not.

John merely shrugged. "In any case," he turned to Gail, "it seems like the time has finally come. I assume she knows?"

Gail looked at Chloe, silently asking if she was firm on her decision. Chloe nodded solemnly. "Let's do this," she said before turning to John. "How much time do we have?"

"Not a lot," he replied. "If we leave now, we might be able to stop your Heartless from attracting too much attention from the public."

"How do we defeat it exactly?" Beca asked, curling her fingers around Chloe's out of habit.

John glanced at their joined hands briefly. "You have the Keyblade, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I can't just whip it out whenever I want to," Beca said, second-guessing why John had given her hand a glance. "At least I think I can't."

"It doesn't matter. The Keyblade will be drawn to Chloe's Heartless and will try to release her heart immediately," he explained. "Our research suggests that it will only take one direct hit."

"It's that simple?" Aubrey asked suspiciously.

"Oh, it's not simple at all," corrected John. "Unlike Chloe's Nobody, her Heartless still _has_ her powers. The bigger challenge will be holding her down long enough for Miss Mitchell to unlock her heart. And fighting is what you guys are trained for," he gestured at his students.

Chloe perked up. "Is there no other way?" she asked worriedly. "What if they get hurt? Maybe I should do it instead, I don't think my Heartless would want to hurt… myself?"

"Chloe, remember, this Heartless _isn't_ you," advised Gail. "It's the pure manifestation of the darkness—and _only_ the darkness—in your heart. It will not show mercy to _anyone_."

"I don't know…"

Chloe still looked agitated and Beca knew what was going through her mind. As determined as she was to stop her Heartless, she couldn't put her friends' lives at risk. so she squeezed her hand and said firmly, "I'm the one with the Keyblade. I'll take on Chloe's Heartless alone."

Chloe was about to object when Aubrey beat her to it. "No," the blonde said flatly. "You won't be alone, Mitchell. Not if I can help it."

"Bree—" Chloe began, turning to her in protest.

"Don't worry, Chlo," Luke cut in, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "I'll make sure nothing happens to them."

"But Luke—"

"And I'll be there to do a better job than he does," Jesse said, jerking his thumb at Luke and grinning goofily at Chloe.

"Jesse—"

"Give it up, sweetie," smirked Stacie. "Wild horses couldn't stop us."

"One Chloe Beale heart, coming up," nodded Cynthia Rose.

Chloe's eyes shined with emotion. She looked at them all gathered around her. "I understand that there's more at stake here than my heart," she said in a shaky voice, "but I am so grateful either way to have friends like you. I wish I could do something to help."

"Maybe there is something," John said quickly. He shared a quick look with Gail before continuing, "We think that you being nearby will entice your heart to reunite with your body and soul. It could make the fight much harder for your Heartless and much easier for Beca to get to the heart directly."

"But that would put Chloe in danger," added Gail, presenting the downside to that plan.

"Not in any more danger than any of you," argued Chloe.

"But you don't have powers," Beca pointed out in concern.

"I can run," Chloe joked with a shrug. "And I trust you guys," she added more seriously.

"Then it's settled. We're going to stop Chloe's Heartless and save the world," Stacie said simply. She gave one last sweeping look at John before declaring, "Everyone meet outside in five minutes. I'll prepare the transportation."

"I'll pack up the food," offered Jesse, turning back into the dining room.

"Luke, Aubrey, want to go over some combat strategies?" Cynthia Rose called from across the foyer. The two blondes nodded and followed her into Gail's study. Meanwhile, John pulled Gail toward the corner in a deep conversation.

Beca and Chloe watched as their friends bustled around getting ready for the biggest fight of their lives. It felt surreal; something so dangerous should be making them all scared, but they were treating it just like any other mission, or any other simulation. Only Chloe seemed to be chewing on her bottom lip nervously.

"Hey," Beca nudged Chloe's shoulder with her nose playfully. "Whatcha thinkin' 'bout?"

Chloe looked at her in disbelief. "What am _I_ thinking about? I'm thinking about how we could all be _dead_ in the next few hours because of me. How about you, what's on _your_ mind?" she added sarcastically.

Beca smirked, once again feeling oddly proud that her sarcasm had rubbed off on her girlfriend so well. "You're such a Negative Nelly—and that's usually my job," she teased. When Chloe still didn't say anything, Beca turned the redhead toward her by her shoulders. "Hey, there's no use worrying about it now. Let's just... enjoy the calm before the storm hits."

"Yeah, I know… It's just…" Chloe took a deep breath and looked away guiltily. "I hate that I'm still on the fence about this."

Beca frowned. "About what?"

"I know I didn't talk to you first before making the decision—"

Beca shook her head. "That's okay. You don't owe me an explanation."

"But I still want you to understand anyway," insisted Chloe. "When I told Gail that I wanted to be whole again, I thought that there was still time, that my Heartless was still locked away and everyone was safe. All I was thinking about was being a whole person."

"Even after I told you last night that you _are_ whole?" Beca said sadly.

"I really appreciate what you said," assured Chloe. "But then you said… you-know-what, and so—"

"Wait, what did I say?"

"You were half-asleep but I could tell you meant it..." Chloe bit her lip. "You said you love me."

It was as though a wildfire had spread throughout Beca's body; her neck, ears, and face flushed and she suddenly felt the desire to melt into the ground. She thought she had only _dreamt_ saying those words. Of course, Beca _did_ love Chloe, but she also knew it was astoundingly too soon to say it, not to mention inappropriate considering everything they had just learned the night before. Chloe had too much on her plate to worry about their relationship right now. "Yeah, a-about that," Beca stammered, "I, uh, you don't—"

"I really wanted to say it back."

 _Wanted to?_ Before she could stop herself, Beca focused on those particular words. Her heart sank, and the pain must have shown on her face because Chloe quickly said, "Not that I don't love you! I do! Of course I do, it's just that... how can I explain this?" She took a deep breath. "It won't _mean_ anything if I don't have a heart to give you."

Beca opened her mouth to argue but closed it when she saw the look on serious Chloe's face. "This not-having-a-heart thing is really bothering you, isn't it?" she asked her softly.

Chloe nodded sadly. "I worry that… that I'm not enough for you; that you can shower me with love but all I'll end up doing is hurting you because whatever I give you in return is _empty_. I realized something last night. I don't exist in anyone's heart," she revealed, and Beca was stopped from interrupting by a finger to her lips, "because there is no heart in me to connect to. You'll just keep reaching out for nothing."

In spite of her indignation, Beca paused to give Chloe's words a serious thought. Obviously, from her own perspective, being able to hold Chloe, kiss her, and love her was more than Beca could want or ask for, but she never considered what it was like for Chloe to receive that love and not be able to give it back the way she wanted to. Chloe would be constantly worried that it wasn't genuine or pure, even if Beca wouldn't doubt that it was.

"So then... why are you on the fence about it?"

"I didn't realize the danger I'd be putting everyone through," answered Chloe. "I mean, I know it's not just my heart at stake—my Heartless _is_ dangerous and if we don't do anything, more people could get hurt after all. I just wish it didn't have to be up to you and the Keyblade." She gripped Beca's hand tightly. "I don't want to lose you."

"Don't be afraid. My heart is strong," Beca recited, almost automatically, as she remembered the voice in her head. Maybe that was why she was so calm about this. She then smiled and cupped Chloe's cheek. "I don't think we ever had a choice, Chlo." When Chloe looked at her curiously, she explained, " _I'm the one who can turn on the light._ That's what someone, or something, told me when I first got the Keyblade."

Chloe still looked confused.

"It _has_ to be me," Beca assured her. "I heard your Heartless trying to break through and I was scared at first, but then I was given the Keyblade so I could fight the darkness. And you know what?" She gave Chloe a cocky grin. "I think I'm gonna win."

Chloe broke into a smile and wrapped Beca in a hug before playfully scrunching her nose. "You're right; we've switched roles. I don't think I like this new Positive Patty Beca Mitchell."

"Okay, then how about I list all the possible ways we could die before we even get to Florida?"

"That's more like it."

* * *

The two-hour plane ride to Florida (which had a one in eleven million odds of crashing, according to Beca) was unexpectedly noisy. Instead of being surrounded by nervous energy, everyone was either discussing battle plans or practicing their skills with random objects found on the plane, which belonged to Gail.

"Obviously, she's not going to let us near her," Luke was saying. "She'll probably use her telekinesis to try to keep us away."

"If you get thrown, make sure to keep your head up, fold your body, and roll once you hit the ground," advised Aubrey. "It reduces the risk of a serious injury."

"If she holds any one of us in place, the others have to distract her," Cynthia Rose added, aiming an uncharged playing card at a nearby wine glass. She then flicked it so hard that it actually embedded itself on the glass. "There always has to be at least one free person."

"So the strategy is to overwhelm her until we can get Beca close enough to strike her?" clarified Jesse. "Do you think you're up for it, Becs?"

Beca raised an eyebrow. "Are you doubting my awesome aerokinesis and Keyblade-wielding skills?"

"No, I mean, we don't actually _know_ what Chloe's Heartless looks like," Jesse pointed out. "What if, you know…" He trailed off, hoping they'd catch on without him having to say it out loud.

"Are you suggesting that, if she looks like Chloe, I couldn't handle running the blade through her?"

Jesse merely shrugged. The others looked at Gail and John, who had both been observing the strategy planning. Gail exchanged another look with John before he answered, "Well, ten years ago she did look just like Chloe."

"A _deranged_ Chloe," Gail added helpfully. "But yes. Physically, she was indistinguishable from Chloe."

"Do you think she's aged since then?" asked Stacie. "It would be kind of weird to fight a little kid."

"Guys, either way, she's _not_ Chloe," Beca reminded everyone. "The _real_ Chloe will be in the jet, watching us from a safe but close enough distance."

"But I'm not the real Chloe either. Not yet, at least," Chloe told her with a cheeky smile, to which Beca responded with a chastising glare.

"You know what I mean," she huffed.

"We're almost there," Stacie called from the pilot's seat. "We'll be landing in a cul-de-sac about fifty yards from Chloe's house."

"Won't residents be alarmed that a jet plane is landing in their neighborhood?" asked Aubrey.

"Uh, you'll find out for yourself soon enough."

The plane began to descend on an eerie, abandoned neighborhood. Front doors everywhere were wide open and banging against the walls due to the wind, and nearly every yard was covered in shattered glass from the house's own windows. Car alarms were blaring through the otherwise silent air. There was not a person in sight.

"What happened here?" Jesse gasped, looking through the window as Stacie maneuvered the landing.

"Chloe's Heartless," John said simply.

"Why hasn't anyone called the police?"

"I'm thinking they didn't have a chance to..." John suddenly perked up and began shuffling through his briefcase.

They all frowned in confusion but before they had a chance to ask, Stacie landed the jet with a small bump.

"Sorry," she said, sheepishly, shutting the engine and moving toward the door. "Are you sure she's here? It seems way too quiet."

"She's here," breathed Chloe, causing everyone to turn to her. She was breathing heavily and her face had paled slightly. "I can feel it… it's like something's pulling me."

"Which one is Chloe's house?" Beca asked, putting a protective hand on Chloe's shoulder. Gail pointed to an utterly demolished plot of land down the street. "Okay, Chloe stays here with Gail and John. The rest of us—"

"Wait! Take these," John said, finally pulling out a bundle of transparent wires he had been clawing for in his briefcase and handing one each to Stacie and Aubrey. "They're earpieces with an electromagnetic pulse that diverts signal interference. I only have two but the rest of you should have them in the suits you wore to the mission."

"Why do we need them?" asked Beca, fishing hers from her back pocket.

"I think Chloe's Heartless used her telepathy to subdue the people in this neighborhood," said John. "The devices are weak compared to her power so I can't guarantee anything, but they will at least make it harder to get inside your head."

"What about you three?" asked Jesse.

"We can use the jet's electromagnetic pulse," said Gail. "Signal interference is common in planes these days," she added with a shrug at their surprised looks.

"All right, team. It's show time," Luke declared, cracking his knuckles. He led the way down the steps and onto the overgrown plot of land they were on.

Beca, however, stayed behind to give Chloe a deep, lingering kiss. "Remember what I said," she whispered when they pulled apart and rested their heads together.

"You're gonna win," she echoed with a small smile.

"Yeah, that," Beca chuckled. "But also… I love you."

Chloe brought her hand up to Beca's cheek. "I love you, too. _So_ much. Now get out there and win me my heart back."

Beca grinned and gave her a wink. "With pleasure!"

She was about to turn around when Chloe grabbed her arm and twisted her back to face her. She crashed their lips together in a more passionate kiss than the safe one Beca had given her earlier. Beca instinctively pulled Chloe closer, inhaling her in and engraving this moment into her memory. She wanted to remember how perfectly she and Chloe fit together and how fighting _for_ her was the most meaningful thing Beca felt she could ever do in her life.

"Don't die," Chloe whispered when they needed to breathe.

"Promise, I won't."

Before Beca departed, she pulled Gail aside and said in a low voice, "I just promised the love of my life that I won't die today, but in case things go south I need _you_ to promise me that you'll escape with her on the jet, no matter what Chloe says or does."

Gail nodded solemnly. "I promise."

"And I still don't trust John," Beca continued, lowering her voice. "He never said he won't go after Chloe again after this so do me a favor and toss him out before you leave."

"With pleasure," Gail echoed with a smirk.

When Beca finally descended the stairs, everyone else was stretching and warming up their powers. They all looked up at her with battle-ready faces.

"Ready, Becs?" Jesse asked his best friend. He raised his fist and tapped it against Beca's. "You always said you wanted one last big adventure before graduation."

Beca chuckled and nodded slowly. She looked at the rest of team and called them out. "Aubrey—Luke—Stacie—Cynthia Rose. I know we've only really known each other for three months..." They all looked at her solemnly. "So let's make sure we get to know each other a lot more after today."

They all grinned at each other confidently. At that moment, a pitch-black tangle of flames rose into the air from the rubble that used to be Chloe's home. And at the center of those dark flames was a slender figure with its arms outstretched menacingly.

Gail and John were right; Chloe's Heartless looked almost exactly like Chloe. She had aged in real time, thus she appeared to look just like Chloe's Nobody, except the baby blue eyes Beca adored were now a bright, golden yellow, and the beautiful peach skin was, on the Heartless, pale as death. Her mouth was formed in a cold, straight line, and her yellow eyes seemed intent on killing anything it came across. Chloe's Heartless looked so full of hatred that it startled everyone to see the image of the bubbly girl they knew in such a state. But it only made them want to destroy it even more.

"Let's do this."

* * *

Response to reviews:

 **Guest** (Aug. 18) - Thank you! I hope it continues to amaze.

 **xXFreakyUnicorn7689Xx** (Aug. 21 and 29) - I made sure you didn't have to wait long to find out that Gail was not _actually_ her mom. And I'm excited for you to see how your ships fare in this story, especially in the next chapter. ;)

 **Maggie** (Guest, Aug. 29) - You are quite awesome yourself for sharing a name with the amazing Dame Maggie Smith _and_ Maggie Simpson haha. Thank you and don't worry—this story still has a lot of creative fuel in my brain tank.

* * *

A/N: Sorry for the consecutive chapters without action! I needed to introduce some things now for plot reasons. Plus, I just love writing about their interactions. To make up for it, though, I'll post the next chapter much sooner.

* * *

Author's Commentary: Like Chapter 4 (I Feel So Close To You), the beginning of this chapter was a lot of fun to write, especially since it came right before the big fight. It solidifies the relationships between these young adults and shows that, despite everything that happened the night before, they still have the dynamic of being youthful, innocent, and carefree.


	9. (Season) Finale

**A/N:** Once again, I believe that anyone who has read, favorited, followed, or even _glanced_ at the bunch of words I strung together deserves of a pre-story Author's Note THANK YOU. If you are currently reading this, then you have my gratitude.

* * *

 **Chapter Nine: (Season) Finale**

Six figures approached the wreckage that served as the centerpiece to the display of ruthless destruction. Their steps were cautious yet bravely ignorant of the danger ahead of them. They spread out to form a half circle around the menacing Heartless, still basking in its darkness amid the rubble of what used to be Chloe's childhood home. It, or she, regarded them with a lazy, unimpressed look until its sharp golden eyes landed on Beca.

Beca had yet to release the Keyblade, so she felt uneasy and defenseless under the hard gaze of Chloe's Heartless. It was as though it knew; as though it could feel the presence of the light that was destined to destroy it.

They had expected the Heartless to say speak when they approached but it kept silent, watching their every step without even blinking. Then, without warning, the vile image of Chloe raised its arms in a grand, sweeping gesture and the ground beneath them began to violently shake. With every passing second, the six grew increasingly light-headed; soon it became difficult to focus, even on staying upright, and in their mental haze they momentarily forgot where they were and what they were doing.

But as quickly as it had happened, the dizzying feeling was gone. Chloe's Heartless growled in frustration.

"I reckon that was the Heartless trying to get in our heads!" Luke called to the others over the noise of the earth still shaking.

"That must mean these things work!" Stacie yelled back, gesturing at her ear. "We're safe from an attack on our minds then—so what're we waiting for? Let's attack!"

And so they did. Their strategy was to first test the waters by striking the Heartless with long-range attacks. Jesse unearthed a large chunk of the ground and sent it flying toward Chloe's Heartless, only to have it crushed before even reaching its target. Also thwarted were Cynthia Rose's card projectiles, which stopped in mid-air halfway through its journey before promptly flying off in a tangent as though deflected by an invisible wall. After barely dodging the explosive cards, Aubrey summoned a powerful lightning bolt from the clouds above and succeeded in electrifying the Heartless for a few seconds before she was tossed into the air with its telekinesis.

Beca and Luke gathered together to barrage the Heartless with objects they found lying on the ground, which was mostly debris. Beca conjured up an air funnel, into which Luke loaded broken up chunks of concrete to shoot toward it. On the opposite end of their half-circle formation, Stacie was using her elongated and elastic arm as a slingshot to shower the Heartless with sharp pieces of wood. Their attacks were weak, but bothersome enough to irritate Chloe's Heartless and turn its attention away from the other three. When a particularly well-aimed piece of what was once part of Chloe's back porch struck the Heartless on the cheek, it turned angrily and grasped at the air with both arms outstretched on either side. Beca, Luke, and Stacie suddenly felt themselves being dragged forward by an invisible hook attached to their navels.

Taking advantage of the momentary respite, Jesse stomped his foot on the ground, hard, splitting apart the earth beneath the Heartless' feet, which caused it to stumble and release its telekinetic grip on the three. Realizing that its opponents were too scattered, the Heartless flew straight into the air. Cynthia Rose followed up with a timed explosive aimed slightly to the right of the Heartless, successfully tricking it to fly closer to the telephone wires, which Aubrey used to augment her next attack.

Chloe's Heartless screeched in pain and fury while the team took the opportunity to advance closer. Beca tried to ignore the ache in her heart amid the screaming; the Heartless sounded just like Chloe, too.

In retaliation, Chloe's Heartless snapped a telephone pole off its base with its telekinesis and swung the giant concrete stick at the ground in an attempt to sweep her attackers off. Jesse and Cynthia Rose had managed to roll out of the way in opposite directions, but Aubrey had rolled smack in the middle of the battlefield. She was an easy target, and the Heartless lifted the telephone pole higher to gain more momentum before she swung it down.

From across the ruined street, Beca flew toward Stacie, who immediately understood the plan and wrapped both ends of her body around the trunks of two trees and formed a stronger slingshot off of which Beca could ricochet and speed up her flight. Beca thus torpedoed toward Aubrey, pushing her to safety seconds before the ground cracked from the force of the Heartless' strike.

Getting an idea from the cloud of dust that covered Aubrey's escape, Cynthia Rose tossed a smoke dice as high into the air as she could to impair the Heartless' vision. That gave the opportunity for Luke to come shooting from Stacie next and fly straight toward the center of the cloud of smoke. He surprised the Heartless with a metallic punch to the jaw that sent it flying toward the ground.

Chloe's Heartless landed with a small tremor, and for a while it seemed like it was down for the count.

"This isn't as hard as I thought," Jesse commented once they had regrouped. "I think the whole strength in numbers thing works!"

* * *

Meanwhile, inside her company's private jet, Gail was chewing on her bottom lip nervously as she watched the fight through multiple screens. Low-resolution cameras attached to the suits worn by Beca, Luke, Jesse, and Cynthia Rose were streaming video to the Professor's laptop, which was propped up on a coffee table and connected to the plane's own entertainment system. John himself was sitting at the other end of the sofa, watching intently with his elbows on his knees and his fingers interlocked. Chloe, however, had decided that she didn't want to watch and was currently pacing up and down the other end of the jet.

"They're underestimating the Heartless," Gail observed with a shake of her head. "The sooner they get Beca up close, the better."

John only hummed in reply, and his apparent indifference caused Gail to turn to him sharply. "Don't you care _at all_ about these kids? It's your fault they're risking their lives, you know."

"Sorry, Gail, I'm just a little distracted."

"By what?"

John nodded toward Chloe, who came in and out of view with her pacing. "What are you going to tell her? What are you going to tell _them_?" he asked in a low voice so Chloe wouldn't hear. Gail adjusted the hem of her skirt as she crossed and uncrossed her legs uncomfortably.

"Let's cross that bridge when we get there," she said.

"What makes you certain _she'd_ do it?" John asked grimly, nodding at the screen corresponding to Jesse's feed, which showed a first-person view of him high-fiving Beca.

Gail had a guilty look in her eye. "She will have no choice. There's no other way—"

The sudden yelling they heard on the monitors got both their attentions. Chloe had frozen in her tracks and was looking at the two adults with wide and fearful eyes. Their view of the fight was now shaky and indistinguishable, as the students had once again sprung into action. It seemed that the tables had turned against their favor and Chloe's Heartless had run out of patience.

* * *

"Shit," gasped Beca, making a 360-degree turn in mid-air to avoid getting stabbed by a sharp piece of flying wood—it may have even been the same one they hit the Heartless with. Thinking there was no way she could get her bearings while dodging debris, she flew as high as she was capable of flying to survey the entire situation.

Throughout their fight with Chloe's Heartless, the clouds had become a dark gray, although Beca estimated that it wasn't that long past noon. The darkness seeping out of the Heartless must have been so thick that it had permeated the air and physically affected the weather.

Chloe's Heartless was beyond furious that the six had managed to knock it down with trickery and sheer force of will. The hope the small victory gave them angered the Heartless, and it sought to extinguish that hope, along with any chance of them succeeding in destroying the Heartless. After recovering from the blow, the Heartless had unleashed a torrent of psychic energy; chunks of debris from the ruins of her old house as well as the neighborhood's began to surround it, shielding it in an almost impenetrable dome that stretched about fifty yards in diameter. The mere setting up of the dome had caused a lot of injuries to the team, who had a long distance to cover in order to retreat to a safer area, but thankfully none were fatal.

From on high, Beca tried to figure out a strategy. She clearly needed to be _near_ Chloe's Heartless if she were to use the Keyblade to unlock Chloe's heart. Her first thought was to simply mimic the Heartless' own strategy: create a sphere of air so condensed that she would be able to penetrate the dome of debris. But upon looking closer and seeing how far she would have to keep the sphere up to get to the center of the dome, in plain sight of the Heartless, Beca realized that it was impossible. She had to find another way in.

* * *

The walls of electricity Aubrey had built around herself to protect her from the flying debris flickered dangerously. It was getting more and more difficult to keep it up, especially because the ash resulting from the disintegration of various materials blinded and choked her. But Aubrey still had a long way to go before reaching the outer rim of the dome.

"Aubrey! Get in here!"

It was hard enough to see with dust in her eyes; it was nearly impossible to see through the sheer amount of objects flying through the air at high speed. But thankfully Aubrey could just make out Jesse's figure waving from what looked like a small cave. Seeing her electric armor rapidly weakening, Jesse hurriedly created a trench that connected her to his cave. Due to the onslaught of materials attacking and chipping away at his own means of protection, he had to multitask: reinforcing the cave of the wall with more earth while digging a pathway for Aubrey. But sooner than later, Aubrey had made it safely inside his small sanctuary.

"Thanks," she choked out in between coughs. Her throat was as dry as a desert and she had black streaks across her perspiring face from all the ash she wiped away. This was the most unkempt Jesse—or anyone else for that matter—had even seen her. Though it didn't seem to bother the brunet, who had gone back to reinforcing the walls of the cave against the flying debris.

"I guess I spoke too soon, huh?" he chuckled.

"Don't worry, you're doing great. Keep it up," assured Aubrey. She knew from overseeing his training simulations that keeping Jesse in high spirits was key to sustaining his performance during tough situations. "Hey, do you think you can make me a window in here?"

With a quick nod and a startling lack of a request to explain herself, Jesse dutifully and carefully made a small hole at the back of the cave he had worked tirelessly to fortify so that Aubrey could look out without being hit. When the cave walls were back to a reliable level of thickness, he closed his eyes and sagged against it.

"You know, you're great, too. Like, always," he said casually, rotating his shoulder to loosen up the muscle.

"Thanks." Aubrey replied absent-mindedly. Now that she had caught her breath she was taking advantage of the shelter to scout around for a strategic vantage point.

"No, I'm serious," Jesse insisted, softening his voice amidst the whistling outside. He still kept his eyes shut. "You're, like, _really_ amazing. So calm, collected, and smart, even in the face of danger. Like now. And I know you don't like to show it but you care so much about the people in your life…"

"Jesse, where are you going with this?" Aubrey removed herself briefly from the window to glance at Jesse concernedly. Had he hit his head before sheltering himself in the cave?

With a huge breath, Jesse let it all out. "I really like you, Aubrey. I know I've pretty much been acting like an insecure coward these past few weeks," he swallowed, "but it's only 'cause... I don't think I could ever be good enough for you. Every time I think about it, I see myself disappointing you at every turn. No matter how hopeful or optimistic I try to be, in the end I just bail. It's pathetic, really."

Aubrey hadn't moved, or even breathed, since he began talking.

"You deserve the world, Aubrey… and I don't have much but I—I'd give you everything I have."

"Jesse…"

"And now I'm so afraid that I lost my chance, or that I'm losing it every second that goes by," he continued. "But you see, I'd rather lose my chance to something like death—or worse, rejection—than to the fact that I was too chicken to say anything." Jesse finally opened his eyes and when he turned to face Aubrey she saw that there was a mixture of sadness, hope, and longing in them.

She wanted to say that this was not the time. She wanted to tell him that they should talk about this later, when their lives—not to mention the fate of the world—was not at stake. But she knew Jesse, more and more over the past three months in fact, and so she knew what really needed to be said—or done.

 _Not for their sake, but for yours_.

Aubrey closed the distance between them and pressed her lips softly against his. "You're so much more than you think you are, Jesse," she whispered against his cheek. "Now dig us a tunnel and let's get rid of this bitch so you can find out just how much."

* * *

Stacie and Luke managed to get out of the dome's reach in time, but not without a few injuries.

"Shit. We can't get any closer to her _now_ ," Stacie cursed, crawling low on her belly and heading for Luke on the other side. Blood from a cut above her brow was dripping into her eye, making it difficult to see where she was going. Luke saw her struggling and reached out into raging winds to help Stacie through.

"I got you!" he said, grasping her securely by the arms and pulling. Stacie rose to her feet once she was safe in his arms; Luke's metallic body provided some protection from the debris as they continued to distance themselves from the dome. They limped a few yards further away from the edge before falling onto the grass, exhausted. But the dome was only getting bigger by the minute, so they knew the safety of being outside was short lived.

"Thanks," breathed Stacie, checking her body for other injuries. "But now what are we going to do?"

"I can get through," said Luke, his shiny metallic face formed into a determined expression. "I just need to penetrate it fast enough so I don't get thrown off course."

"I can slingshot you," Stacie offered at once.

Luke shook his head. "We'd have to take off as close to Chloe's Heartless as possible. But the dome is getting bigger; just getting into position will leave you extremely vulnerable."

Stacie took only a second to think. "Then we make it count," she said firmly. "Take Beca with you and a smoke die from CR. I'll get you both through the dome—I'm sure with Beca's help you can get through quickly enough. Once you're in you can distract Chloe's Heartless long enough for Beca to sneak behind it. It only takes one hit, right?"

"That's really dangerous," insisted Luke.

"But you think it'll work?" prompted Stacie. Luke opened his mouth but hesitated to answer so Stacie pointed a few yards away, choosing not to wait for one. "There's CR. I'll grab a die from her and you find a way to get Beca down here. I think I saw her flying somewhere up there."

The growing dome was starting to gather more and more objects as it progressed into a tornado-like phenomenon, so to avoid cutting herself Stacie kept her stretched finger low to the ground like a snake on its way to Cynthia Rose, who was crouched behind a dilapidated car while throwing explosive cards every once in a while to break apart the larger or more dangerous pieces of debris.

"Stacie," Luke began slowly as he scanned the skies for Beca, "about what you asked earlier…"

"What?" Stacie frowned, focusing on getting her finger across the minefield of debris and broken glass.

"About my dating history and how it doesn't include, or _will_ ever include, Aubrey."

Stacie glared up at him. "Dude, is this _really_ the right time?"

"Do you know what my motto in life is?"

"'Do things in the right place, at the right time'?" she said sarcastically.

"Actually, it's 'Do whatever makes you happy,'" he said with a small smile.

Stacie didn't bother with a follow up; half her focus was on tapping Cynthia Rose on the knee to ask for a smoke bomb, and the other half on trying to determine if Luke was suffering from a concussion.

"I love Aubrey like a sister, and she makes me happy," continued Luke. "We're so much alike—only she's better in almost every way," he added with a lighthearted snort.

"So what's the problem?" Stacie asked in spite of herself. Cynthia Rose tapped her finger back before she left, signaling that this was her last pair and she was now out of weapons.

"Isn't it obvious?" said Luke, finally signaling to Beca with a reflector light when he saw Stacie's finger returning, wrapped around a pair of dice. "I don't make her happy."

"But you do," Stacie argued absent-mindedly.

"Not in the way I thought I wanted," he shrugged.

"Oh. I'm sorry," Stacie said softly, before realizing the connotation. "Wait—you _thought_ you wanted?"

"When I realized that I wasn't the person who could make her happy, I started getting over her and hoped that someday she would find that person. This all happened years ago, Stacie, and since then I've felt content with our relationship. So I'm being completely honest when I say that I love Aubrey, but I will never love her _that_ way."

With her finger finally back to its normal size, Stacie rolled Cynthia Rose's dice between her fingers. She looked up and saw Beca approaching cautiously through the outer edge of the dome. Something about the impending plan made her want to hurry. "Who do you think makes her happy?" she asked quickly.

Luke shrugged. "I don't know if she's met that person yet." Then he glanced down at Stacie. "All I know is that she's happiest when she's being challenged."

* * *

Beca caught the glint of Luke's waving hand and threw a glance at the center of the debris dome, where, judging by its gradually darkening color, Chloe's Heartless was undoubtedly gathering a huge amount of dark energy for its final attack. She carefully dodged the debris, which was easier now thanks to Cynthia Rose breaking most of the large chunks apart; her air sphere was strong enough to blow away the little pieces.

As she neared Luke, she saw that Stacie was taking shelter under his large frame, and once she had landed Beca enlarged the sphere to include all three of them. The taller brunette had a determined look on her face when she turned to Beca and immediately began sharing the plan.

"Sounds good," nodded Beca. "We just need Cynthia Rose to provide back up and cover you."

Stacie shook her head. "She's out of ammo. Where are Jesse and Aubrey?"

"Somewhere inside of the dome," Beca answered with a grimace. "But they're safe, I think. Jesse made some sort of shelter for them. Either way, we might not have time to regroup; Chloe's Heartless is gathering more power by the second."

"Then let's do it now," insisted Stacie. When Beca still looked hesitant, she pushed. "Let's the face the facts here, guys. We don't have much of a choice." She gestured at the center of the dome. "Chloe's Heartless is only going to get stronger while we only get weaker. This may be our _last_ chance."

Beca didn't feel right leaving Stacie unprotected while she and Luke blasted off of her; in the few group training simulations she had had, they had always made sure that everyone got to the end safely. She shouldn't have expected it to be the same in real battles. At some point in the middle of her internal struggle, Beca felt Luke's hand on her shoulder. She looked up at her friend and closest person to a mentor she ever had; and he gave her a reassuring nod. Turning back to Stacie, Beca looked at the taller brunette straight in the eye and nodded. "Thank you, Stacie."

"You can thank me when this is all over," she smirked in reply.

Protected by Beca's air sphere, the three moved to a better location. But even as Stacie wrapped her arms a dozen times around a nearby (still unbroken) telephone pole, and her legs around a sturdy tree a few feet away, the Heartless' dome was already encroaching on their safe space. Stacie kept her body tight and taut, for increased elasticity and a stronger thrust. "Ready," she called to the other two.

Beca hopped on to Luke's back like a human jetpack while he aligned his lower back with Stacie's outstretched abdomen and started walking backwards.

"I'll have to take the air ball down before we shoot," warned Beca. "Once we're off, get cover as _fast_ as you can."

Stacie nodded.

"All right. This is it... In three… two… one… GO!"

The last thing Beca and Luke heard before the blowing wind filled their ears was a pained cry from Stacie, whose body was left open to be bombarded. Beca felt a pang of guilt when she thought about how the extra jet of wind she created to push herself and Luke off faster may have sent even more objects flying toward Stacie. But there was no time for guilt; in a matter of seconds, they had successfully penetrated the dome and were in sight of their target.

Beca and Luke realized that they had reached a clearing after going through all the debris, where the air was still and nothing moved. Chloe's Heartless must have kept a small area undisturbed for itself to maintain its meditative, levitating pose at the center of all the destruction. Luke immediately detonated the smoke bomb so Beca could jump off him and glide as fast as she could around the Heartless without being seen.

Yellow eyes widened in anger at the intrusion and the Heartless' arm reached out to grab Luke telekinetically by the throat. Instantly, as though it had lost concentration, the debris stopped flying in circles and instead showered the ground.

"You think you can hit me with the same technique?" it said, speaking for the first time in a cold, high voice. Its fist tightened around Luke's metal neck, which proved much stronger than flesh. Then the Heartless' hateful eyes traced Luke's trajectory, all the way down to where it ended with Stacie on the ground, getting up gingerly from under a pile of fallen debris. "That will be your last."

"N-no!" choked Luke, struggling to extend his metal arm to stab the Heartless, but falling short of distance.

Chloe's Heartless raised its free hand, the calm with which it did sharply contrasted with the terrifying power it wielded, and sent a beam of pitch-black psychic energy straight toward the injured brunette.

* * *

"Jesse, wait!" Aubrey grabbed Jesse's shoulder just as he was about to duck into the tunnel he had built to sneak closer to Chloe's Heartless. "I think—I think the dome is down. Listen..."

Jesse widened the window at the back of the cave and saw—and heard—that Aubrey was right. The air was clearer from the absence of objects, and the whistling of the wind had died. Jesse disassembled the entire rock cave and they both looked up to see Heartless Chloe choking Luke.

"Luke!" Aubrey shrieked. She instinctively stepped forward to begin sprinting toward them but Jesse held her back. "Hold on tight!" he said, and he created a platform from the ground beneath them that he used to quickly lift them both toward their captured friend. They weren't that far but—

A dark energy as black as death surrounded the Heartless' other fist and, for a second, Aubrey and Jesse feared that the Heartless was going to punch Luke with it. But instead the energy beamed straight toward the ground on the other side of the field. Aubrey's eyes widened in horror as she traced its path and realized that it was heading for a battered figure that looked a lot like Stacie. They could hear Cynthia Rose yelling her name in the distance. And then a blast the size of a small park replaced the image of Stacie.

* * *

" _NO!_ "

Chloe's heart leapt into her throat at the sound of Gail's distressed cry and she could no longer stop herself from entering the lounge. Her stomach threatened to empty its contents as she approached the screens on shaky legs, fearing the worst. She covered her mouth with her hand in shock when the screen corresponding to Cynthia Rose's feed showed Stacie's lifeless body at the center of a shallow crater.

Tears had barely formed in her eyes when she felt something tug at her chest again. It was the same tug she felt when she first recognized the presence of her Heartless. Chloe could tell it was getting stronger and more insistent. There wasn't much time left before it would become too easy for her Heartless to get rid of everyone.

 _Unless…_

Chloe looked sympathetically over to where John was patting Gail's shoulder. He had a sincerely sympathetic look on his face, and his downcast eyes weren't even paying attention to the fight anymore. Meanwhile, Gail was almost frozen in shock and despair; she had her eyes shut as tightly as her fists were, as though willing time to turn back on itself.

Chloe glanced at the screens and through the window; the debris that had been pelting the plane earlier had suddenly stopped, and judging by the feed her Heartless had now turned its attention back to Luke. It was then that she realized what the tugging meant: her Heartless was calling out to her by threatening her friends. It was never going to stop until the darkness had completely taken over her whole being. So, although she was grieving as much as Gail was, Chloe decided to put her grief aside and take the opportunity to quietly sneak out.

But her foot had barely touched the first step leading off the jet when she felt a hand curl around her arm. "Chloe!" Gail had sensed her movement and quickly moved across the plane to stop her. "Don't."

"I have an idea," Chloe said monotonously. "It might save their lives."

Gail hesitated for a moment the presence of John standing behind her reminded Gail of her promise. "N-no, Chloe, you have to stay here."

"I figured you'd say that," shrugged Chloe. "Sorry about this."

Using a few techniques she learned from watching her friends in combat training, Chloe managed to twist her arm off Gail's hold and shove her lightly but forcefully into John. The two adults stumbled backward and tripped over each other's feet. Chloe quickly grabbed Gail's pashmina before the woman fell, and wrapped it around both their heads. With the wind knocked out of them and their vision covered by the cloth, Gail and John were easily shoved into the cockpit, the doorknob of which Chloe jammed with a nearby end table. She knew it wouldn't keep them locked in for long, but it would buy her enough time to get to her Heartless.

With one last apology, Chloe dashed outside and ran as fast as she could toward the battlefield. The first thing she did was to approach Stacie, who was propped up on Cynthia Rose's lap. The cut on her brow had opened and blood had dried on one side of her face; her clothes were torn and the exposed parts of her skin looked scorched.

"Chloe! What are you doing here?" Cynthia Rose asked, looking up from administering first aid to Stacie's injuries.

"How is she?"

"She's alive. Badly injured but she has a weak pulse," she replied in a slightly wobbly voice. "Chloe, your Heartless can attack at any moment and we're wide open—"

"Take Stacie back to the jet and give the her the help she needs," ordered Chloe. "Leave and go to a hospital if you have to. I have an idea. And I promise none of you will get hurt anymore."

Chloe left the two without a word and ran to where her Heartless had Luke—and now Beca, she realized in horror—by the throats.

* * *

When Beca saw the explosion hit Stacie, a blind rage overrode her senses and she lunged straight at Heartless Chloe with the Keyblade already materialized in her hand. She didn't know how it had gotten there, but she was grateful for it if it meant putting an end to the vile monster. But just when Beca was sure it would make contact with Chloe's—but _not_ Chloe's—back, the evil incarnation of darkness turned around and stopped her with telekinesis. Unable to move, Beca felt herself float helplessly toward the Heartless' outstretched arm.

"It's you," it said in the cold voice that was so unlike Chloe's. "I could smell your fear from the other side of the door," it laughed. "You have no idea…"

Beca felt her eyelids drop heavily. She tried to focus on moving her body, or at least listening to the Heartless' words, but before she knew it, she was passing out.

* * *

When Beca opened her eyes, she was on top of the dark, stained glass tower once again. Only this time, something felt different. Somehow she knew it wasn't the same place, or the same tower. The one had a deeper, reddish glow.

Suddenly, Beca heard sniffling behind her and turned, expecting to see her younger self again. But instead, the moment she turned around the surroundings changed into a different kind darkness, a more natural one. Beca thrust her arms out, feeling around, and waited for her eyes to adjust long enough to realize that she was inside a closet. Beca momentarily felt claustrophobic until she saw the source of the sniffling:

A little girl with fiery red hair sitting on the floor with her knees pulled up to her chest. She was banging her fist on the closet door and sobbing, "D-daddy, please! I d-don't know what happened! I don't know what I did w-wrong!"

There was no question of who this little girl was.

" _Please!_ Let me out!" the girl begged, banging harder. Her voice was strained from yelling and crying. "I'm scared! Please!"

Beca's heart ached painfully. She wanted to reach out and tell the younger Chloe that it was okay, that nothing could hurt her in the darkness. But she knew she wouldn't be able to touch her, or that even if she spoke Chloe wouldn't be able to hear her... because these were _Chloe's_ memories, and there was only one explanation for why she was seeing them. The signal disruptor in her ear must have finally broken and Chloe's Heartless was forcing Beca to see _everything_.

* * *

The scene changed. From being inside a closet, Beca was now standing in the middle of a girl's bedroom. The room was typical for a ten-year-old girl, but if Beca hadn't known about Chloe's powers, she would have been surprised at the destructive mess that even the wildest child could not have made on their worst day.

Standing in front of Beca with his back to her was a grown man with messy dark brown hair. He was hovering threateningly over a cowering little girl who was nearly half his size and backed up against the foot of her bed. Beca had almost reached out to attack the man, but the instant she remembered that she couldn't affect memories she looked away immediately. She did not want to see with her own two eyes what she had been told just the night before. But no matter how tightly she shut her eyes, Beca couldn't do anything about the whimpers and cries that filled the room. She wished in vain that it would stop.

"I told you—never—to do that—again!" the man roared, punctuating each word with a blow. "You want the fucking cops to take you away?"

"I c-can't help it!" Chloe sobbed, her words almost indistinguishable from her crying. "Please believe m-me!"

" _Stop crying!_ " the man bellowed. "This is for your own— _good!_ "

* * *

The scene changed again, thankfully. This time Beca found herself in a modest living room. Once again, normal, save for a few details. The large window facing the front yard was shattered, and the furniture in the room was thrown about haphazardly.

Beca knew this memory; it was the first time Chloe snapped. Beca was reconsidering her thankfulness as she turned her head tentatively toward the opposite end of the room. The younger Chloe was cradling her unconscious mother on her lap; she looked to be in shock, staring into space with her swollen, teary eyes. Before Beca could take a step closer, police sirens began sounding through the neighborhood and Chloe was snapped out of her daze. She looked at her surroundings once more and kissed her mother's forehead before leaving the woman on the floor and making a run for it.

* * *

The scene changed again. Beca was now outdoors, though she couldn't tell what time of day it was due to the overcast sky and heavy rain. She instinctively sought refuge under a tree only to discover that the rain didn't affect her; after all, it was only a memory of rain. She observed her surroundings and saw that she was standing several yards from the edge of a vast lake, the ground beneath her descending toward it in a shallow incline. She turned around to look past the trees, only to find the horizon disappear behind a small hill.

Beca heard a shuddering breath from somewhere closer to the lake and followed the sound to a completely drenched Chloe curled up at the base of a large tree. She had assumed that the little girl was shaking from the cold, but when she caught sight of her face Beca realized that it wasn't so; Chloe was shaking in fury. Her brow was furrowed deep, her nostrils flared angrily, and the muscles below her tear-stained cheeks kept twitching as she clenched and unclenched her jaw. Beca noticed a flash of yellow glaze over Chloe's eyes and she feared that she would be facing another Heartless Chloe. But instead, Beca heard a familiar voice behind her.

It was the last person Beca would have guessed she'd hear in this memory.

"Honey, don't you think she's too young to be watching this?"

Beca turned around once more to see her mother sitting on a couch with her arm around a man. The grassy hill was gone, as were the trees and drops of rain, replaced by a quaint living room with comfortable, beat up furniture.

A young Beca was sitting on the carpeted floor at the two adults' feet, digging into a bag of marshmallows. Beca cast her younger self a quick look and judged that she was probably around seven or eight years old, before her eyes were uncontrollably drawn to her father. She had refused to have pictures of him in the apartment they had moved into after they left this home (and her mother had wordlessly agreed) but his face was forever ingrained in her memory as the spineless ass who his family. She could never forget the tall forehead, the soft brown hair, and the humorous eyes that made up her once beloved father.

This was one of Beca's own memories.

"Nah, I think she's mature enough for the news. Right, Beca-boo?" her father asked, stealing a marshmallow from between Beca's tiny fingers.

"Hey!" she whined before turning to her mother and nodding. "My teacher says we should watch the news more. Learn current events and stuff."

" _You're watching the evening news with me, Paul Parker,_ " said the news anchor with an obvious toupee before swiveling his chair to face another camera. " _We have breaking news_ _—_ _a couple in Florida found dead in their homes last night. The police have no suspects yet and, according to the victims' neighbors, the couple had a ten-year-old daughter. Police investigation suggests that the young girl_ was _present during the incident but is now nowhere to be found, leading the authorities to open a missing persons case._

" _Florida police are monitoring bus and train stations as we speak, and are cooperating with Georgia and Alabama state police in case she crosses state lines. We have Mary Maroney at the scene right now for more information. What can you tell us, Mary?"_

The screen split in half to show a blonde reporter standing outside the familiar Beale home, which was sealed off by police tape. The front yard looked as though the police had already taken care of Mr. Beale's body.

" _Well, Paul, the most we know right now is that the police were alerted by a domestic disturbance call from the Beales' neighbor, followed soon by the sound of a small explosion. The police won't disclose what_ exactly _happened here, Paul, but as you can see,_ " she motioned behind her, " _it looks as though the victim was thrown_ through _the window—_ "

"Honey," Beca's mother started, but her husband was too engrossed in the news report.

" _It could have been a homemade bomb, it could have been a kidnap job—the bottomline is, Paul, we know close to_ nothing _about this case and we can only hope to find young Miss Chloe Beale._ "

" _Thank you, Mary,_ " the toupee-man segued smoothly. " _To our local audience at home, you will find on your screen a photo of Miss Chloe Beale—you see her there, red hair, blue eyes. If you have_ any _information on her whereabouts please don't hesitate to contact the numbers below._ _Let's now go to our social worker correspondent, Jacqueline Jackle. Jackie, what's in store for Chloe—"_

Beca was watching the news report with her younger self and her parents, open mouthed. She had completely forgotten that she actually _knew_ about the Beale incident when she was a kid.

"She's so young," her mother mumbled sympathetically, staring at the picture that was still on the screen opposite the social worker.

"Is she missing?" little Beca asked.

The older Beca now realized that one reason she didn't remember the news report was that she didn't actually understand what was happening that time. The adults had only kept talking rapidly and in serious tones, and they didn't show much pictures besides Chloe's. Eventually the novelty of watching the news wore off and little Beca wouldn't remember such a thing until years later. Another reason Beca had forgotten was most likely the fact that her father would soon leave them devastated, causing her to block out most memories she had of them as a whole family.

"Yes, sweetie," her mother answered. "So if you see her around, make sure to tell a grown-up, okay?"

"Okay," little Beca nodded determinedly, thinking it was a classic case of a runaway kid like she saw frequently on TV. "Don't her parents know where she is? If _I_ ran away from home, I'd go to my favorite places first."

Her father tousled her hair fondly, an act that made the older Beca grit her teeth. "That's pretty smart, kiddo. But sadly, her parents are dead." His wife threw him a reproachful look but he just shrugged again. "You understand what that means, right?"

"Yeah," little Beca replied in a sad tone. The news went to commercial but Beca remembered that her past self had something more to say. She remembered it all now. Indeed, after a while, little Beca piped up, "She must be so scared right now."

Her parents exchanged confused looks. "Are you talking about the girl, sweetie?"

"Yeah. She might be all _alone_ ," little Beca said, as though it was the worst thing that could happen to a kid. "She has no more parents. If she ran away then she has no more home either, or friends."

Her parents didn't say anything, but waited for little Beca to get to her point.

"That's really sad. I could give her some of _my_ things," little Beca added casually as an afterthought. "You know, I have a lot of things that make me happy—I have you guys and I have a home and I have my friends and my toys. Right now she needs more of that stuff."

The tiny brunette's parents—and her older self—smiled at her proudly. Suddenly, from behind her, the older Beca heard a giggle. When she turned around, her living room, her parents, and her younger self disappeared and the scenery was once again back to the rainy lakeside.

Chloe's younger self was leaning against the tree and smiling down at her hands, the cold anger that had marred her beautiful face was all gone.

* * *

Beca blinked her eyes once and found herself face to face with an older and much angrier-looking version of that girl, only it wasn't Chloe herself, but her Heartless. "You have no idea," it repeated with a snarl, "that it was you who stopped me the first time."

Beca gasped, trying to get air into her desperate lungs. The Heartless's face lightened upon seeing Beca suffering.

"If it hadn't been for those experiments, I would probably never have had another chance," it mused. "I really should thank the good doctors for that, right before I rip their hearts out of their bodies. But right now I'm more focused on getting my revenge on you—argh!"

The Heartless suddenly released Luke from her grip and used the freed hand to clutch her chest. Instinctively, Beca formed an air cushion with what little energy she had left just before the unconscious Luke hit the ground, and out of the bottom corner of her eye she saw a redheaded figure approaching.

 _Chloe, no!_

The Heartless groaned again. Seeing Beca's eyes widen at the sight of something on the ground, or perhaps simply reading Beca's mind, it turned around and saw its own Nobody staring up at it. "You," it laughed coldly and slowly began to descend.

"Chloe, get away!" choked Beca, the corners of her vision dimming from the lack of oxygen in her system. She didn't know what would happen if Chloe's Heartless killed her Nobody, but she didn't want to wait and find out. She had to end it now.

But she was getting so tired…

* * *

It hurt her to see Beca so helpless against someone that looked exactly like her, but Chloe knew she had to be strong for her plan to work. The tugging in her chest was not only painful; it was literally making her weaker by the minute. And she knew it was affecting her Heartless the same way; they were two parts of the same being, desperately trying to become whole again. If only she could weaken her Heartless long enough for Beca to get free and attack before passing out.

"Came to join the party?" her Heartless mocked, opening its sickly pale arms wide as it descended to her level. Not a second after its jeer, the Heartless winced and pulled both arms to its chest, letting Beca drop to the ground.

A pained grunt escaped Chloe's throat. She was glad Beca was free but the tugging at her chest was excruciating; she was having difficulty breathing being this close to her Heartless. But she reminded herself to keep her composure and to keep her Heartless talking.

The Heartless looked at the Nobody for a while. It, too, was breathing heavily. Then it smiled a wicked and sinister smile. "You don't remember anything," it laughed. "They wiped your memories clean! And based on that empty head of yours, I'm assuming you don't have our powers?" The Heartless lifted a finger and pointed it at her.

Chloe flew into the air and was forced to do a couple of loop-the-loops like a useless rag doll for her Heartless' enjoyment. Once it had its fun, the Heartless snapped its fingers and Chloe cried out in pain. "Now where have I heard that before?" it asked mockingly. "Here, let me remind you."

Using their telepathy on her defenseless Nobody, Chloe's Heartless filled her with memories of the darkest times in their life, as she had done with Beca. Only this time was much worse because the Heartless had kept the emotions as well and filled her with them. Chloe didn't even realize she was screaming and crying until the morbid montage was over.

Then the Heartless dropped Chloe to the ground carelessly. "Oh, don't worry," it waved a hand lazily, while Chloe struggled to get to her feet quickly. "I won't kill you. That will only make _their_ job easier."

Chloe couldn't stop the confusion that shadowed her face.

"Oh, _of course_ they didn't tell you," cackled her Heartless, seeming to gain energy from hurting her despite the tugging in their chests. "Didn't you fake mommy tell you that you're just an ignorant pig being raised for slaughter?"

"What are you… talking about?" Chloe rasped, feigning interest just to keep her Heartless engaged. Under the guise of wiping a stray tear, she scanned her surroundings and spotted two things: the golden glint of something on the ground and a scurrying movement at the corner of her eye.

Her Heartless smiled, relishing in the fact that it was the better, stronger, and smarter Chloe. "It's not enough that they kill _me_ —"

"NOW!"

In the fraction of a second it took the Heartless to frown at its Nobody, Jesse had split the ground open and trapped its feet and hands; Aubrey channeled a nearby transformer from a broken power line to send bolts of electricity enough to power a small city through it; and Beca leapt up from the ground and pressed the tip of the Keyblade against its back.

Beca had no last words to give Chloe's Heartless before running the blade through the vile creature.

* * *

Chloe's Heartless screamed bloody murder as the light from Beca's Keyblade burst from where it protruded from its chest. It even tried thrashing to break free from the blade but Beca only held on tighter. The Heartless never stopped screaming until it dissipated, like all the other Heartless they had ever defeated. The heart that was released from it was the biggest and brightest any of them had ever seen.

Beca felt a calm sense of familiarity as she watched Chloe's heart hover in front of her eyes. It felt like meeting an old friend after a long time apart. She waited expectantly for it to rejoin its body and soul—its Nobody—and become whole again, but when she looked past the bright orb, she saw Chloe lying crumpled on the ground.

"CHLOE!"

Jesse and Aubrey were right behind her as she rushed to the fallen redhead. "Chloe, what's wrong?" Beca panted as she tried lifting Chloe onto her feet. "Come on, take your heart—it's right there!"

"It's not enough," Chloe whispered softly. She was still clutching her chest. "You have to release me, too."

"What do you mean?"

"Release _me_ … release my body and my soul." Chloe's bright blue eyes locked with Beca's before fluttering half-closed.

"You mean…"

"She has to die, too," came John's voice from nearby. He and Gail were panting slightly from running all the way from the jet. John was sporting a small bruise on his temple from Chloe's attack.

" _No!_ " Beca, Aubrey, and Jesse yelled in unison.

"This wasn't part it!" Beca protested angrily. "You said we just needed to defeat her Heartless—you didn't say she had to go, too!"

"I'm so sorry, Beca," said Gail. "I wanted to tell you last night at the library but that was when I thought Chloe would be emotionless—"

"You _knew_?" Beca lashed out. "You made us _trust_ you! And you knew how I felt about her—!"

"Gail understood how much it would affect you and Chloe if either of you knew what would eventually have to happen," John said calmly. "That's why she kept it until this moment."

"Chloe's body and soul don't exist in the _form_ of her Nobody," explained Gail. "They exist _contained_ in her Nobody. This is the only way to truly bring her back so please, Beca, trust me this one last time!"

"Beca," Aubrey said tentatively, "Beca, it's okay. We'll still have Chloe back, you just—you just have to use your Keyblade to get her body and soul to come out."

But Beca had realized the catch the moment John revealed that Chloe's Nobody would have to go, too. "You're forgetting one thing, Aubrey," she said quietly. "Even if it means making her whole again, Chloe won't remember any of this. Gail said it herself—Chloe's body and soul are contained in her. Neither holds memories so when I release them... Chloe will forget everything."

Gail didn't speak, and Beca took it as a sign that she was right. It all would have been fine if Chloe got her heart back in the end; she didn't mind it if Chloe remembered all the bad things in her past. But for Chloe to forget all the _good_ that had happened since... Beca knew it was selfish to want things to stay the same, but if there was even the slightest chance she could have it her way, it was worth asking for.

Beca believed that Chloe Beale _had_ a heart, no matter what some cryptic old man says in his stupid notes. Chloe _did_ belong in the hearts of everyone who loved her, and that should be enough for her to continue loving _and_ living. Beca never needed Chloe to give her a heart; she could have just worked on having a heart big enough for the both of them. That _thing_ floating in front of them wasn't Chloe's heart. It was just a representation of the pain of Chloe's past. Beca was her future.

Beca sorely wanted that to be the case.

"Look at her," John said gently, motioning at Chloe, who was in too much pain to be following the conversation. "Her soul and body are desperately trying to escape to rejoin her heart, but they can't unless _you_ release them."

"And the longer we wait, the closer Chloe's heart disappears to a place where we can never get it back," added Gail. "And with her heart in another world entirely, Chloe's body and soul will wither away and she will truly be dead."

"Beca," Jesse said softly, crouching down to put a hand on his best friend's shoulder. "I know it's hard, but—but maybe it's for the best? A Chloe that doesn't remember is better than no Chloe at all."

Beca closed her eyes and let another tear fall. She knew, of course, that they were all right; in the end, all that mattered was saving Chloe's life. But the outcome terrified her for reasons she didn't want to admit. She couldn't imagine going back to a life without ever feeling as loved as she did in Chloe's embrace, or ever feeling that she _could_ love someone as much as she loved her. Beca realized now that it went both ways: Chloe was also meant to bring the light back into Beca's heart.

She feared having to start over again because it hurt to think that it might have just been dumb luck that Chloe loved her, that because Beca was the one to find Chloe at the abandoned mansion, the Nobody reached out _her,_ and that, after all of this, the real Chloe wouldn't even spare her a glance.

"What if she doesn't love me when she wakes up?" Beca whispered, voicing out her fear to her closest friend.

Jesse looked away sadly, not having an answer for her either.

"What the _hell_ are you saying?"

Beca looked down in surprise at Chloe, who had managed to open her eyes halfway to glare at Beca through the pain. "And FYI, it's not very nice to talk about someone when they're right in front of you."

Beca let out a half-hearted chuckle. "Then you should know what I'm talking about," she said seriously. She leaned in to rest her forehead on Chloe's and whispered the redhead's own words back at her. "I don't want to lose you."

"Listen to me. Don't you _ever_ worry that I won't love you," Chloe said in her best scolding tone considering her state. "I've loved you for the past ten years, haven't I? I'll love you for the next ten _millennia_."

 _Big words. Big promises._

Chloe's promise only reminded Beca that she wasn't able to keep her own promise to protect Chloe. But Chloe raised a weak hand to wipe away a tear from Beca's nose. "I know now… that our hearts are connected… Did you feel it?"

Beca gave a small nod, remembering the familiar feeling she got when Chloe's heart was released from her Heartless.

"My broken heart was drawn to _your_ selfless heart ten years ago and latched itself onto you." Chloe knew this was true the moment the memories flooded hers and Beca's minds when the Heartless had entered them. "Our hearts are connected," she repeated softly. "And that connection will never be lost. No matter where, or _who_ I am, I will _always_ love you."

Chloe moved her hand down to cover Beca's hand holding the Keyblade. She nodded encouragingly at the brunette and guided her arm. "Come on," she cajoled playfully. "It won't hurt, I promise."

Once again, it was moments like these—when, being an inch from death, she still managed to make Beca smile and forget everything that was wrong with the world—that Beca was certain she'd forever be in love with Chloe Beale. _It won't hurt_ , she promised, and Beca understood that she didn't mean the Keyblade wouldn't hurt, but that Beca had nothing to worry about. When Chloe would be whole again, everything will be back to normal.

Beca gave her a watery smile and whispered, "I'll see you soon, Chlo," before kissing her meaningfully. "I love you, too. Always and forever."

Gently pushing the blade against Chloe's chest, Beca could tell that her soul and body were indeed yearning to get out, because Chloe felt almost like nothing; the Keyblade met barely any resistance. Chloe was already halfway gone. Unlike her Heartless, which left behind a heart when it dissipated, Chloe's Nobody fully dissolved into particles of light. They flew as though magnetized toward Chloe's heart and all three disappeared in a bright flash.

They all waited with bated breaths for Chloe to reappear... until their waiting seemed to be in vain.

For a long time after the others had given up, Beca wouldn't stop staring at the spot where Chloe's heart, body, and soul disappeared. Aubrey and Jesse had decided to give her some time alone, and busied themselves with checking up on Luke and Stacie, or in making plans to clean up the neighborhood. Gail and John had stayed with her longer, but Beca didn't even notice.

Eventually, Beca felt the weight on her chest lift, as though someone had nudged her and offered to share the load. A smile began to tug the corners of her mouth upward. Looking up into the now clear sky, Beca let the smile grow fully. She didn't know what would happen next, or if they would even ever meet again, but she knew—she could _feel_ that somewhere out there, Chloe was whole again.

* * *

" _One day, it'll be our light—the light that brings us together. I'll be in your heart until that time comes."_

* * *

Response to reviews:

 **Maggie** (Guest, a few hours ago) - Thank you! That means a lot. :) Hope you like this chapter! Please see my notes below. :)

 **xcombixgirlx** (Sep. 3) - You read about 54,000 words' worth of something I wrote in just one go? Good for you for not losing focus! :) I was really worried that some would find it too complicated because I have everything figured out in my head, but I was never sure if it translated well in writing. Please see my notes below! :)

 **Elsannafic** (Sep. 3) - Thank you! The world needs more love so hey, I love you, too! With regard to 'continuing,' please see my notes below. :)

* * *

 **A/N:** I won't bore you with more thanks, even though you deserve it, so instead I will explain some things. So please **don't scroll down** until you've read this part.

 **First** is that I had finished writing the entire story before uploading it, which (if you had been wondering) explains why I update so quickly. This is important because, **second** , I originally intended it to end with this Chapter.

The parenthetical '(Season)' means that you can ignore the word and consider this story done. Finished. Signed, sealed, delivered—it's yours to re-imagine.

 _But_ as I went through editing, I sort of wanted to see more of this world myself—not ignoring the obvious tragedy that is leaving out some of the best Pitch Perfect characters in it (*ahem* Fat Amy). So I went ahead and wrote a second part—a 'Season 2,' if you will. I'm deliberately avoiding the word 'sequel' just because I don't want to create a 'New Story' on FanFiction.

Plus, I like continuity and consistency, and what I write will hopefully make you wanna look back at the early chapters and go, "Oh, yeah, how did I not see that coming?" It would be easier to have it on one file.

Which leads me to, **third** , my Public Service Announcement of sorts. I will be continuing the story through this same Story on FF, so **if you want it to end here** , then you can avoid bothersome e-mail alerts and unfollow, as I won't be marking this 'Complete' yet. My absurd reasoning is that, as I mentioned before, this is as much the readers' story as it is mine^ when it comes to imagination, and the part that I write might not be the way you imagine things to turn out, who knows?

But if you don't overthink things like I do and **just want to see what happens next** , continue on below! :)

* * *

 **Epilogue**

* * *

So Beca got her the heart, and now she has to find the girl. Sure, most stories had it the other way around, but where's the fun in that?

* * *

"Argh!"

Chloe groaned in frustration, dragging her bare feet through the sand to dry them. By the light of the moon behind her, she could just see her way back up the shore. She kept dragging her feet until she arrived beside a large flat rock where a tall, powerful-looking man with thick dark brown hair was sitting, casually swinging his legs and twiddling his thumbs. He looked to be in his forties, and was smirking at the sight of Chloe trudging through the sand.

"So, how was your third try?" he asked with a hint of playful mocking. His voice was deep and raspy and had the timbre of a consummate professional.

"About as successful as the first two," she replied plaintively, tilting her head to the side and shaking it to get the water out of her ears.

"Trying jumping," he advised when Chloe wouldn't stop hitting herself. So she jumped.

"Thanks," she said, before taking a seat beside him.

"I've been telling you, you're not going to get out of here by swimming."

Chloe turned to him and squinted her eyes suspiciously. "Did _you_ try swimming out of here?"

Pause.

"No," he obviously lied.

Chloe threw her head back and laughed. "I would have loved to see that."

"I happen to be a very dignified swimmer, thank you very much. Like a shark," he added as an afterthought.

"Did you have to take off your tux?" Chloe asked, gesturing up and down at the man's suit with her finger. "Which, by the way, I never asked why you were wearing."

The man looked at her incredulously as though she just asked the world's dumbest question. "It's after six, what am I, a _farmer_?"

Chloe raised an amused eyebrow. "How do you know it's after six when the moon here never sets and the sun never rises?"

The man pulled back his sleeve and showed her the time frozen on the face of his watch. "It was after six when I got here."

"Oh, right." Chloe wrung the remaining water out of her hair. Then she groaned again, stretching her arms out, and bent backwards to lie down on the rock. "I need to get out of here! It's been months!"

"Actually, it's only been a couple of days."

"Oh, how would you know? You've been here for ten years and thought it had just been one!" she snapped.

The man twisted around to give her a reproving look with his icy blue eyes.

"Sorry," Chloe grumbled like a reprimanded child. "I guess that was rude."

The man squirmed in his seat and leaned back to lie side by side with Chloe, who couldn't help giggle at the way he struggled to get comfortable in his tuxedo. He let out a breath once he got in position and lifted his arm to let Chloe prop her head up against his stomach. "The first couple of days are the hardest," he said. "It's when you miss the life you had the most. It's when you'd do anything to get out of this place. Then," he adjusted his position, "after maybe a month, you start thinking that anything is better than being stuck here—and don't you be getting any ideas now," he added, giving Chloe a stern look.

Chloe held up her hand. "Hey, I had all the darkness squeezed out of me. You don't have to worry."

"Mhm. Anyway, that's how I know it hasn't been months yet," he continued. "It's cause you're still in that angry phase where you pine over your loved ones."

"I do miss them so much," Chloe sniffled. "Beca… Aubrey… Luke and Jesse, Stacie and Cynthia Rose. Even your wife."

"Thank you, again, for forgiving her so quickly," said the man who was revealed to be Gail's husband, the business magnate Jack McKadden. "I knew she would beat herself up over what happened."

"I don't think I could have held a grudge, really," shrugged Chloe. "She did give me a great alternative childhood to the one I actually had."

Jack nodded slowly. When Chloe was brought to consciousness a couple of days ago, it was due to the feeling of gentle waves kissing her cheek. She had woken up to find herself beachside and the moon about halfway up (or down) the horizon. She had been wandering up the shore when she noticed a man in a fancy suit lying on a flat rock with his eyes closed and his hands clasped together on his stomach. Chloe had recognized Jack instantly from her false memories, and she had run up to wake him. They spent the first couple of hours since Chloe's arrival talking about what had happened in the last ten years; he had asked about Gail, and she had asked about the origins of the Project and, for Chloe's own pleasure, how he and Gail had met.

In just one day (measured in real time, as they had no sense of time in that place given that it was always evening) they had bonded like actual father and daughter (Chloe had skated over that part awkwardly in case Jack wasn't comfortable with the idea) thanks in part to the false memories but also to their matching personalities.

Chloe was pleased to find that, despite being stuck in this endless coast he called the 'Dark Margin,' Jack had remained his jolly and effervescent self, which was precisely how she 'remembered' him. On the other hand, Jack was delighted to see a Chloe with sparkling, baby blue eyes, instead of the yellow-eyed one he had locked up in the Realm of Darkness all those years ago.

("What about the fact that I'm ten years older?" she had asked with a laugh, to which he had replied fondly, "You'll always be a little girl in my eyes.")

"So there really is no way to go back?" Chloe asked dejectedly.

"Oh, I think there is," said Jack. "Otherwise we would have been sent somewhere else."

"That makes perfect sense, Jack."

"I believe," he continued, ignoring Chloe's sarcasm, "someone's going to _fetch_ us."

Chloe raised herself up on her elbows and looked at him. "You think Beca and Gail are looking for us?"

"My heart believes so."

"Yeah…" Chloe looked at their only source of light in that dark coastline, the half-risen (or half-set) moon. "My heart believes so, too."

* * *

Beca slammed her fist on the digital alarm clock by her bedside table, yawning widely and stretching. She noticed that the framed picture beside the alarm clock had fallen off when she had brushed her arm against it so she bent over the bed to pick it up. Turning it over in her hands, she snorted at the image of her in the middle of the gardens doing an odd, bent-over pose for the camera.

 _What the hell am I doing in this picture?_

After pausing to wonder why she thought to have it framed and put on her bedside, she simply chalked it up to joking around with Jesse, and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. Now that she was awake, she tried to recall if there was something new in the odd, recurring dream she had for the third night in a row.

The dreams that plagued her sleep since the big fight in Florida always began on a deserted beach at night. She was walking along the coast when, as revealed by the second dream, she suddenly started to run. But the dream ended before she arrived at her destination. And last night, the third occurrence of the dream, she dreamt that she was almost there—even though she didn't know exactly where ' _there'_ was—but then woke up to the sound of the alarm.

When Beca told Jesse over breakfast about it, he shrugged it off and said that it might be her subconscious wanting to go to the beach. "If you want, we could drive down to Tybee Island this weekend," he suggested, taking the coffee pot and pouring two mugs for him and Aubrey. "What do you think, Bree?"

Jesse finished pouring Aubrey's cup and kissed her 'Good morning' on the cheek. It didn't come to a surprise to anyone, since they had just announced that they were 'officially' dating the day before. Beca guessed that something must have happened in Florida but they wanted to give their friends time to get some rest first before they came out with their own news.

Personally, Beca didn't care to give Aubrey the 'Best Friend Talk'—even though she knew Jesse would be elated if she did—because Aubrey was the most responsible and organized person in the world. If she were to break Jesse's heart, she'd only do it after drafting a plan to put it back together first just to avoid the mess. But all things considered, she was happy for her best friend, who had been harboring a crush on the blonde ever since he met her.

"That sounds great," smile Aubrey. "Do you think you'll be up for it, Stacie?"

The blonde locked eyes with the brunette across the table. Stacie blinked confusedly and snapped out of a thoughtful daze. "Uh, yeah," she said, absentmindedly scratching her nose with a casted hand.

Apart from a broken wrist, Stacie also suffered a minor head injury—which was why she was sporting a bandage across her forehead—and a few broken ribs when the Heartless had aimed a psychic explosion during the fight. Fortunately, thanks to her elastic powers the damage hadn't been as fatal as it could have been and Stacie was healing at record rates.

And although Stacie's and Cynthia Rose's identities as Gail's agents were revealed right before the fight, they all decided that it was better for them to continue their training at the Barden Institute, where the Professor had more resources than AMG when it came to educating people with powers. It wasn't a tough decision to make, since the girls had only bonded more with the students after the ordeal in Florida.

"Sounds fun," Stacie added with a smile when Aubrey wouldn't stop staring at her.

"I meant with your injuries," Aubrey said gently. "We could just—"

"No, it's fine," Stacie insisted firmly. "I can take the time to relax."

"All right, it's settled!" cheered Jesse. He saw Luke enter the dining hall and immediately asked, "Hey, Luke, can we all drive down to Tybee Island this weekend with your car?"

"First of all, we need a bigger car to fit all of us," the Brit said, skipping his usual morning pleasantries. "And second, you all ought to hurry up with your breakfasts. The Professor wants to see us."

"All of us?" asked Cynthia Rose, pointing at herself and Stacie.

Luke nodded. "Everyone who was at the fight a few days ago."

* * *

"What do you think he wants?" asked Jesse, walking side by side with Aubrey with their hands linked on the way to the Professor's quarters.

"I don't know," replied Aubrey. "We haven't seen him since the evening of the big fight so maybe he has new information."

They all seated themselves on the couches in the Professor's antechamber, wondering what the meeting could be about. They were still slightly confused about what exactly had happened a few days ago, so the logical conclusion was that the Professor was finally clearing things up for them. When the six students had been waiting for about five minutes, Charlene finally came out of the office, closely followed by the Professor and Gail.

"Now, I'm sure you're all wondering where we've been the past few days," the Professor began without further ado, "and why we called you in here today."

The students nodded.

"I used all my resources at AMG, and even contacted a few friends, to search the entire globe for Chloe and we both came up with nothing," Gail informed them. "So we sent patrol droids into the Realm of Darkness. Since it was where we found her Heartless, we figured her physical being would be there, too—"

"—but again, nada!" the Professor continued enthusiastically. "Which leads us to believe that Chloe is in _another_ world. A world in between—!"

"We don't quite know _how_ to get to that world in between," added Gail. The students were turning their heads left and right, as though watching a tennis match, just to follow the conversation led by the two. "But based on Ansem's secret reports we believe it involves going _into_ the Realm of Darkness and crossing some sort of border into some sort of in-between world—"

"So what do you guys think? Are you up for another adventure?" the Professor asked, rubbing his hands together excitedly.

To his and Gail's surprise, rather than chorus their eagerness the students only exchanged confused looks. "Professor…" Luke began with a frown, "I think you might have skipped a step."

"It sounds like a lot of fun and all—" Jesse said assuredly, as though worried they would sound ungrateful for a mission.

"And if you think it's important then of course we're in," Aubrey offered quickly. "But—"

"—who's Chloe?" asked Beca.

* * *

 **A/N:** Last one, I promise, and you'll never read from me again for a while.

Remember when I noted before the epilogue that I finished the story before I uploaded? Well, that's because I need the story to _be_ finished so I can link past and future chapters with plot points.

With that said, "Season 2" is still only halfway filled out, and the next one (yes, there's a third) is still in my head. I won't be updating as fast as I did for the first nine chapters but I'll do my best.

Thanks for sticking with the story! Feel free to review or send PMs of your questions, I'll still respond to them via PM unless of course you are a Guest, in which case, you'll have to wait for chapter 10. Bye for now.

* * *

 **^ - DISCLAIMER** : I actually own nothing; not the characters, themes, nor concepts found in Pitch Perfect, Kingdom Hearts, X-Men, or any other registered intellectual property that resembles any story element in The Light That Brings Us Together. The specific putting-together of the story can be considered my intellectual property but it shouldn't matter because I cannot, nor do I seek to, profit from this anyway.


	10. Christmas Special

**Introductory A/N:** I made the season two "premiere" episode into a BBC-style Christmas special (but with more plot-relevant stuff). I am fully aware that it is _not_ Christmas in any part of the world, but season one ended around November in story-time, so the first chapter picks up immediately after the Epilogue and continues until Christmas of 2012.

* * *

 **Chapter Ten: The Christmas Special**

"Well, this was unexpected." John closed the door behind him and walked over to his wooden desk, politely waiting for Gail to take the seat across it before sinking into his own.

"I agree," nodded Gail, looking troubled. "I expected _Chloe_ not to remember us, not the other way around."

"It doesn't make any sense," said John, shaking his head in confusion. "First of all, _you and I_ remember everything, so that rules out the possibility of Chloe's Heartless' downfall causing our memories to disappear."

"If I may offer my hypothesis—"

Gail jumped in surprise. She turned around to see John's loyal assistant, Charlene, standing by the door with her hand raised.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware you were here," said Gail, throwing a questioning look at John to confirm that his assistant was trustworthy enough to be present in this conversation.

"Go ahead." John waved his hand and gave Gail a confirming nod, explaining, "Charlene helped me parse Ansem's reports once I got a hold of them. On top of that she makes sure that the school runs smoothly. She's pretty much my second brain."

Charlene gave a polite nod acknowledging John's praise before going into her explanation. "According to the reports, a Nobody in its existence is exceptional. Unlike the whole being, or its Heartless, a Nobody has no function other than to be the melding of a soul and body that once belonged to an exceptionally strong heart. In other words, according to Ansem, a Nobody was never meant to exist." She paused to allow the words to sink in.

"However, in the duration of a Nobody's existence, there is nothing said about _not_ being able to create memories in others," she continued, "which explains why the students were able to see Miss Beale _and_ retain memories of her, but only while she continued to exist as a Nobody."

"So you're saying," John scratched his chin thoughtfully, "that when Beca released Chloe's Nobody, the memories they had of her disappeared along with it?"

Charlene nodded. "It created a paradox of existence. A Nobody is never meant to exist, right? But when it _does_ exist, creates memories as a result of this existence, and then subsequently _ceases_ to exist, that creates a vacuum of supposedly-existing non-existent memories, hence the paradox."

"But that doesn't explain why _we_ still remember her," frowned Gail. "Or you, for that matter."

"Both of you knew the real Miss Beale prior to the creation of her Nobody. It circumvents the paradox," explained the raven-haired assistant. "And I… confess that I do not remember Miss Beale for her time _here_ at the Institute. There are no records of her existing. Pictures, videos, written logs—all have no trace of a girl named Chloe Beale. But I connected what I learned from Ansem's reports to what had happened in Florida and concluded that she did indeed exist."

Gail looked thoughtfully at the woman, marveling at how quickly she had been able to believe something she could remember. John, meanwhile, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes with a sigh. "Do you think there is any way for them to recover their memories of Chloe?"

"The best we can hope for is that a reunion with Miss Beale will trigger them, but it's a complicated paradox. I am not optimistic."

"Why do you ask?" said Gail, turning to face John. "You don't think they believed us?"

"Not so much that they didn't believe us," he answered. "They just clearly need a stronger motivation. To them, Chloe is a complete stranger."

Gail understood clearly what John meant. It was surprising, and not to mention disappointing, to have witnessed the students divided on the matter of rescuing Chloe; it hadn't been a sure 'yes' as Gail had expected. When she and John had discovered that the students had no memories of Chloe, they explained most of what had happened in the past three months—from the night at the abandoned mansion, to the Heartless battle in Florida. (Gail had agreed to pull back on blaming John for the entire ordeal, to keep the focus on rescuing Chloe, so the two had only filled the students in with the critical details.)

But despite learning that Chloe was their friend and that they had taken a great risk to restore her heart, half of the team—Luke, Jesse, and Stacie—was reluctant to take on the mission. Given the danger they would be put through again, they wanted assurance that their efforts wouldn't be in vain. In other words, they wanted to be sure that Chloe was indeed where they thought she was.

Aubrey, Beca, and Cynthia Rose, on the other hand, were quick to accept, but it was mostly out of duty (Aubrey), a thirst for the next grand adventure (Beca), and simply the thrill of the risk (Cynthia Rose). Since Beca was critical to accessing the world in between, Gail was happy enough that the Keyblade wielder was willing, but she couldn't help wonder if John had a point with regard to the students' motivations.

"You know, it would have helped if you told Beca," prodded John. "I mean, who doesn't love an epic tale of a heroine rescuing her beloved princess? And if they knew, her friends would've been on board right away."

Gail shook her head. "Didn't it just crush your heart to think that Beca remembered _nothing_ about her relationship with Chloe? After everything she did to save her?"

John shrugged. "It's young love. I tend never to take it seriously outside of its theatrical effect."

Gail glared at her stone-hearted former colleague. "It was more than that. In any case, we still aren't sure if Chloe herself retained her Nobody's memories—right?" she added, glancing back at Charlene, who nodded. "Not telling Beca might save her the heartache down the road."

"Okay, then," John said slowly, "but what are we going to do now? What if we go back out there and they've decided not to take on the mission at all?"

"I highly doubt that," Gail defended the students immediately. "They may be young, but they're ambitious and brave. You should know that; they are _your_ students after all."

John sat up straighter to challenge her assessment. "I won't deny that that is all true, but Luke is smart. Hidden beneath his carefree demeanor is a sharp mind, and if he thinks the mission is too much of a risk—which, quite frankly, it very well might be—he'll be able to persuade the others. Jesse is, I believe, primarily concerned with the safety of his friends and girlfriend. If Luke makes a compelling argument against the mission, Jesse will only be firmer in his decision to stay."

"But Aubrey is strong-willed," Gail pointed out. "She won't back down if she believes it's what's right. And rescuing Chloe _is_ the right thing to do. Beca, well…" Gail chuckled fondly. "Beca's stubborn. She won't take Luke and Jesse telling her what _not_ to do lying down."

Charlene stifled a laugh behind her hand. Just then, someone knocked on the wooden doors of John's office and a moment later Luke popped his head inside. "Professor? We have our answer."

* * *

Beca watched as the Professor, Gail, and Charlene trooped back inside the antechamber. Earlier, after they had explained who Chloe was and what the mission was about, the students had requested a few minutes alone to discuss the mission together as a team. On her part, Beca thought of the problem—and its solution—in a simple, straightforward way.

Risking their lives together had been an effective team building experience for Beca, who felt a newfound respect for the friendships she had made with the other five after the big Heartless fight they had a few days ago. Beca had always been wary of getting too attached to people, but she had no doubt that she would risk her life again for any of them, and that they would do the same for her. So after the Professor and Gail had told them about Chloe, the person who was apparently at the center of everything that happened in the past few months, Beca's solution was to equate the feelings she had for her friends to feelings she had for Chloe. With absolutely no memory of the girl, Beca had to rely on sheer willpower to believe that she would also risk her life for Chloe.

When the three adults had finally settled down, Beca was the first to speak. "We'll do it," she said firmly.

"On one condition," Jesse continued quickly before Gail and the Professor got too excited.

"We need time to prepare," said Luke.

"And enough time for Stacie to fully recover," added Aubrey.

"If the Heartless we fought in Florida— _Chloe's_ Heartless," the name felt weird on Beca's tongue, "was any indication of the enemies we'll be fighting in the Realm of Darkness, we need to be a whole lot stronger individually and as a team."

Gail gave the Professor a smug look before turning back to the students. "How much time do you think you'd need?"

"We get that time might not be on our side," said Cynthia Rose, "so we'll get to training ASAP."

"In the meantime, it would help if you could find a way to make sure that Chloe _is_ at the world beyond the Realm of Darkness," said Stacie. "If not for our sakes, then for Barden's. You can't exactly have six of your best students MIA without explaining this whole thing."

Gail exchanged glances with the Professor and both nodded in agreement. "The AMG drones I sent inside the Realm of Darkness have scanned around eighty percent of the realm so far and, as we said, have found nothing. We will continue searching but at this rate, it's not likely that Chloe inside. And we can't attempt to break through to the world beyond without the Keyblade either so we're really going into this blind."

"Then in that case, maybe we could use the drones to conduct recon on the possible types of Heartless we might find inside while we prepare," suggested Aubrey. "If we know what we're up against, we can get through the Realm in a shorter time."

"We can also try entering the Realm occasionally to get a feel of what it's like to fight inside," said Cynthia Rose. "Beca is our key to accessing that place, right? We can test the waters and keep pushing until we feel that we're ready."

"Will that be in the next month? In the next year?" asked John.

"We're not really sure," said Beca, exchanging looks with her teammates. "Like CR said, we're going to get to training ASAP, but we're not really sure _when_ we will feel ready."

"We know that's a lot of trust to put in us," said Jesse, rubbing the back of his neck guiltily. "But we've all agreed to make this mission our top priority and we'll do our best not to let you down."

"And we've also decided that one way we can track our progress is through our powers," explained Luke. "Every new milestone we reach while training will be a signal to go further into the Realm of Darkness. That way, we won't waste time waiting to feel ready before taking on the mission."

"So what do you think?" Beca asked tentatively after they laid out their plan for scrutiny.

Gail and John looked at each other and had a silent conversation with their eyes. It wasn't as though they had a choice; neither of them could enter the Realm of Darkness themselves, and every second they deliberated on a better solution was time they could spend locating Chloe. "I think we can work with that," Gail answered with a nod. "And since we obviously don't want anyone to get hurt in this mission, I will make sure that you guys have the best, state-of-the-art equipment AMG can give. Even better than those suits you wore to your last mission."

The students' faces brightened up excitedly. John scratched his chin thoughtfully, not wanting to be outdone especially after Gail had dissed his custom-designed suits. "And _I_ can give you unlimited cuts on your classes—er, I mean..." He withered under Gail's reproving look.

"We trust you to take this seriously," she added, looking at each of the students. "Chloe is waiting somewhere out there."

They all nodded. "We appreciate your understanding," Aubrey said solemnly. "We won't let you down."

* * *

"… so you can imagine all the wisdom and power found inside Kingdom Hearts," Jack said elatedly while pointing at crude drawings on the sand.

Chloe hummed, not really following the discussion but also not wanting to be rude to Jack, who was enthusiastically summarizing the reports of some old, dead guy she wasn't particularly interested in. "But what about, like, individual hearts?" she asked, drawing one on the sand, before he could begin droning on about another topic. "I don't understand the whole strong heart and weak heart thing."

"You mean the balance of light and dark," Jack said knowingly. "A strong heart is one that has the most balance—not necessarily _more_ light, but a better balance between the two. A weak one is usually one whose darkness is too much for the light."

"And my heart was definitely weak when I was brought into the Project, right?"

Jack nodded. "We tried to make it better. But then John messed that all up and your heart weakened again."

"But then Gail said it's not normal for a _weak_ heart to have a Nobody."

"That is true, according to Ansem's reports."

"So what happened there?"

Jack leaned back on his elbows thoughtfully. "When your Nobody was released after your heart was—do you remember how it felt?"

Chloe nodded. "It's as clear as if it happened yesterday—which, I don't know, it probably did."

"Remind me what you said when Beca was afraid that you wouldn't love her when you woke up."

Chloe's face softened into a sad smile. "I told her that I've loved her the past ten years and I'd love her for ten millennia… I told her that our hearts are connected, and that no matter what I'd always love her."

"What made you say that?"

Chloe blushed. "What do you mean? I love Beca—"

"No, I meant why those exact words?" Jack amended hastily. "It's interesting. You loved her for the past _ten_ years. Why ten?"

"Well, 'cause it was ten years since…"

"Since you left your parents' home," finished Jack.

"Yeah," Chloe nodded thoughtfully. "When my Heartless forced itself into my head to remind me of the pain, I think it forgot to hide the parts it saw in Beca's mind first."

"What did it see?"

"When Beca was young, she saw me on the TV. She saw the news report about my parents and she felt bad for me. I don't know how but Beca saw me. I was on the run, tired and really scared. And I was angry; I remember being so angry I was shaking... but then something happened and it stopped. Beca must have seen this, and reliving it through her memories, I realized that, at that moment, Beca's heart found my heart, and it sort of latched itself onto hers."

"And you feel like you've loved Beca since that particular moment? Not ten years later when she rescued you from the mansion?"

"Well, yeah. She saved me that day ten years ago, too. I don't think I could've— _oh._ " Chloe perked up, finally understanding. " _Beca_ is the light in my heart! She was what gave it the strength to create my Nobody."

"I believe so, too," smiled Jack. "There is an exceptional connection between your hearts, which is why I believe that if anyone were to find us in this place, it would be Beca."

Chloe returned his smile and turned to face the moon, wondering where Beca might pop out of when she does arrive, because this place seemed as inescapable as a black hole. Chloe had tried walking along both ends of the coast, just to discover that after a certain distance she had stopped moving from her position no matter how many steps she took. And behind them, up the coast, were just the same endless sand and jagged rocks.

If there was no way out, then there might be no way in… that is, other than the way she and Jack got in. She recalled her conversation with him about how _he_ ended up there:

"When your Heartless manifested," Jack had explained to her, "I used what skills in light I learned from reading Ansem's reports to cast it into the Realm of Darkness. But then I was dragged along and let go just as we reached the deepest part of the realm. That's what makes me think that this Dark Margin is a world _beyond_ the Realm of Darkness."

Chloe wondered—she _hoped_ that somehow Gail or John would have figured this out. She supposed that, with Beca's Keyblade, they could enter the Realm of Darkness easily, but she worried that they would search every inch of the Realm of Darkness, find nothing, and give up. And Chloe wasn't sure what was more painful: the waiting or the inability to do anything about it. She could only imagine what it must have been like for Jack.

Thinking about him traversing between worlds made Chloe wonder about the other person involved in the incident ten years ago.

"Hey, whatever happened to the third man in the room?" she asked. "The doctor? Ben, I think, was his name."

Jack scowled, the anger still evident on his face. "That yellow-bellied pathetic excuse for a man? I have no idea," he shrugged. "I always got the feeling that John had bullied him into going that far, which only made me angrier at him. The guy couldn't even stand up for his own name," he added with a derisive chuckle.

"What do you mean?"

"Ben went by the name John, too. But John _Smith_ wanted to be the only John—yes, he was immature that way," Jack laughed, seeing the look on Chloe's face. "But I think it was mostly for the recognition. If the Project was successful, he wanted no confusion as to who was getting credit."

"I can't imagine working with someone like that," said Chloe with a shake of her head. "What a… butt-head."

"John certainly had his days. I knew he was quite the character but I never imagined he would do what he did to you," Jack said bitterly.

"But Dr. Ben _wasn't_ dragged in with you, was he?" Chloe pushed on, not wanting to relive memories of John Smith, especially now that she fully remembered everything the man had done to her. "I wonder what happened to him..."

"Well, you said they shut down the Project and made sure none of the people involved contacted each other, right? Maybe Ben took it seriously, unlike John and my wife. I think I remember hearing he had a family so he probably went back to normal life. God knows Gail and I would have."

"You still can, you know. Once Beca gets us out of here." Chloe turned to Jack. "You can have a family."

Jack paused to let the idea sink in. He had spent so many years, sometimes thinking they were only months, in the Dark Margin that he had nearly lost hope of ever returning to Gail. To him, it seemed like the moon and coast were metaphors for his time in that place: frozen and endless. And then Chloe came along and brought the hope with her, all of a sudden things began to seem less permanent. There was something to look forward to again.

The possibility of a future back in the real world brought to mind one other thing. "Chloe," Jack began slowly. "I don't know if Gail ever mentioned it to you but... we had room for you at our home in Westchester, you know, just in case you were okay with the idea of coming to live with us when the Project was done."

Chloe smiled. "I know. Gail showed me the room when we were there. It had a lot of bunnies."

Jack chuckled awkwardly. "Um, so I was wondering. If—when we do get back to the others… would you—and it's okay if you don't—but would you still want to? Live with Gail and me, I mean. As, I don't know, like a family sort of thing?"

Chloe's eyes widened. "Y-you still want me to?" she stuttered. "I mean, I'm older now and you and Gail can still have a family of your own—"

"Gail and I had been thinking about it for months before the incident happened, Chloe. You were pretty much a daughter to us throughout the Project, however disastrous it turned out. And I _know_ Gail put those false memories in your head because it was the life she had wanted for all three of us." Jack looked at Chloe with a wistful expression. "Ten years is a lot of missed time, and I'm not wasting any more of it once we get out of here. I want to make up for those ten years with you as officially a part of our family."

He had barely finished his sentence when Chloe leapt forward and wrapped him in a tight embrace. Her voice came out muffled by his shoulder when she said, "Thank you! Of course I'd love to!"

"Great!" Jack laughed, clearly relieved. "Now I just have to worry about compiling everything a father should say to his daughter by the time she's twenty."

Chloe pulled back and blinked. "I'm twenty years old?" When Jack chuckled she hit him lightly on his shoulder. "I'm seriously asking! No one's said anything about that yet and I started to wonder."

* * *

Beca and her fellow team mates kept their word. In the few weeks that followed, they regularly underwent simulated battles against Heartless of various levels of strength inside the simulator underneath the Barden mansion. Between classes, exams, training, and the occasional mission assignment to eradicate Heartless found in the real world, they barely had any time for leisure. As the fall semester wound down, the mansion's common areas (other than the library) were practically gathering dust from disuse as all the students focused on their school work. Even the dining hall barely had any occupants, since meals were frequently taken to go.

While academic requirements were gradually ticked off their to-do lists, trainings in the simulation room had gradually become more difficult. Thanks to information gathered by the drones and with the help of AMG's engineers, the simulator was able to create faux Heartless that perfectly mimicked the abilities and fighting styles of those in the Realm of Darkness, simulating what it would be like to go deeper and deeper into the Realm.

Meanwhile, the real world wasn't exactly shying away from adding to their workload.

Ever since Chloe's Heartless broke through the Door to Darkness, the barrier between the real world and the Realm of Darkness had weakened, causing more rips or Corridors to appear, not just in their general area, but anywhere in the world where darkness was prolific. And since the Professor couldn't explain to the other jealous students why he kept sending only their particular group of six around the world, he eventually considered allowing any willing and able student to participate in the missions. It was because of that decision that the particular group of six that included Beca, Jesse, Aubrey, Luke, Stacie, and Cynthia Rose came to be called 'Team Alpha' to simply distinguish them from the other block of students (the Beta team, which included the ever-resentful Bumper) when assigning missions.

Although Beca's Keyblade was required to seal the rips between the world, most of the time the Heartless were scarce and the holes small enough for the situation to handle itself—which Beca was immensely grateful for—once the Beta team had cleared the Heartless. During those times, Team Alpha remained at Barden to spend that freed up time training. For instance, on this particular Friday night, after the last of their exams, Team Alpha was in the middle of fighting a Behemoth Heartless.

"Jesse, what the hell! I said _avoid_ getting hit at all costs!" Beca yelled into her earpiece when she saw Jesse's rock pillar crashing down along with him.

" _I know_!" he yelled back irritably. "I was just trying something!"

"Watch out, it's gearing up for another energy rain!" came Aubrey's voice through the communication device. "Think fast!"

Above them, large glowing spheres of energy began raining from the sky. It wasn't the first time the team had witnessed the Heartless use this technique (the first time had them all groaning painfully on the ground after) so they knew well enough to dodge the balls as much as they could until they ran out; attempting to hit them was useless and very painful.

Tired of running around like an idiot, Beca jumped off and the ground and flew far and high enough to be out of the Heartless' range and surveyed the damage. It felt like they had been fighting the behemoth of a Heartless forever and they _still_ weren't close to taking it down. Its attacks were very powerful and difficult to recover from, while their own attacks didn't even seem to harm it.

Then Beca's eyes were drawn to the massive creature's horn. She had been too busy avoiding the energy rain before to notice that the Heartless had a horn at the top of its head, the size of a large van. Since they barely came up to the creature's ankles while on the ground, the team had been focusing on taking down its legs. But now, from up high, Beca wondered if the horn was its weak spot.

"Guys, try attacking the horn when you can!"

When the energy rain had stopped, Jesse, Cynthia Rose, and Luke came out from their covers and threw projectiles—rock, cards, and Luke himself with help from Stacie's slingshot technique—straight at the horn. Beca watched as the creature flinched and roared in anger after the rock smashed into its horn, followed immediately by an explosion and a staggering kick from Luke.

"It's working!" cheered Cynthia Rose as the Heartless stumbled on its hind legs.

But the fight was far from over. They had only succeeded in making the Behemoth angry and thus lash out at them even harder that the team had to double their defensive efforts to avoid getting a serious injury. The fight went consistently discontinuous: pause to defend, then attack, pause, and then attack again, and as Beca watched the pattern from above, she grew frustrated at the team's lack of urgency.

"Guys, we already know its weak spot! So _why_ _the fuck_ are we still wasting time!"

Even though it was meant as a rhetorical question, it still pissed Beca off that no one replied. Flying straight at the raging creature, she took out her frustration on its horn, which she struck mercilessly and countlessly with her (artificial) Keyblade as much as she could before she would have to fly off again once it started ferociously jerking its head. This time, however, it seemed that Beca had hit the Heartless enough times that it fell forward, exhausted, which finally allowed her teammates to get close and attack the horn themselves.

"That's it! Keep going!"

After taking a certain number of hits, the Behemoth recovered and summoned a wave of electricity, blasting all of them. And because they were all grouped together, the lightning bounced off each of their bodies and compounded. It was the first time the Heartless had done that move, so they were all shocked (literally and figuratively) into immobility until Aubrey was able to redirect the electricity away from their bodies.

Beca groaned and shook her head to regain focus.

This was going to be a _long_ fight.

* * *

Eventually, the Alpha team was able to defeat the Behemoth without anyone incurring serious (but simulated) physical damage. Despite Beca's frustration at the start-and-stop technique, it proved to be the only way to finally wear the Heartless down and destroy it. After it dissolved, along with the simulated environment, into the metallic walls of the training room, the team marched into the command center after the mission to recover their stamina and check their performance.

Beca glanced up at the screen.

 _DATE: 12/16/2011, 06:02PM_  
 _SUBJECTS: Team Alpha_  
 _ENVIRONMENT: Realm of Darkness_  
 _TIME ELAPSED: 00:52:01 (final)_  
 _\+ MISSION OBJECTIVE: -None-_  
 _\+ HEARTLESS LVL: 4 (Behemoth)_  
 _GRADE: B_

"B? Not bad," said Jesse, wiping his face with a towel.

"Yes, it's bad," snapped Beca. "It took us almost an hour to get through a level _four_ Heartless!"

"It's not about the time, Becky," said Luke, knowing how impatient Beca got when it came to finishing missions. "It's about—"

"'How you use your powers and teamwork'—yeah, yeah," she recited mockingly. "But the thing is, Luke, in the _actual_ Realm of Darkness, we won't have all the time in the world to finish off one Heartless at a time in the most elegant way possible!"

"Beca's right," said Aubrey, turning to the computer to update their grading standards. "We need to think about efficiency of time spent as well."

"Easy for you to say, watching from the sidelines," muttered Stacie. When the blonde straightened up and raised an eyebrow at her, the brunette defended, "Your electric powers were practically useless against it!"

"Hey, I saved all your asses, didn't I?" Aubrey shot back.

"And what exactly were _you_ doing, Stace?" Jesse argued in Aubrey's defense. "Besides entangling yourself in its legs—what help was that?"

"Yeah, Stacie, it totally wasted so much time!" added Beca. "You should have been trying to hit the horn, like I told you to!"

"I was _trying_ to get it to trip so those of us who can't _fly_ ," Stacie shot Beca a dirty look, "would be able to fight it!"

"Which, by the way, Becs, would have been nice of you to use earlier to find out its weak spot," Jesse pointed out. "Talk about wasting time."

When Beca, Aubrey, and Stacie all opened their mouths to pile on to the argument, Luke held up his hands and bellowed, "Whoa, whoa! _Calm down!_ "

"Guys, we could have known its weakness right at the beginning just by reading the report," reminded Cynthia Rose. "But the reason we do it this way is so we can fight it, get bent outta shape a bit, and along the way figure out its weakness ourselves. And then we work _together_ to bring it down. _That's_ the point of these simulations, right? To learn and to practice thinking on our feet _together_."

"So let's everybody just chill the fuck out, okay?" Luke offered. "There's no reason to be fighting if we all own up to our mistakes and know how to correct them when we fight the _actual_ Behemoth."

The other four members of Team Alpha exchanged apologetic looks with each other and nodded.

"I'm sorry," said Beca. "I guess I can be a bit of a bossy dickhead sometimes."

"Welcome to the dark side," smirked Aubrey, giving Beca a side hug to show that all was forgiven.

"Aww, let's promise never to fight again!" Jesse said cheerfully, moving between his girlfriend and best friend and wrapping his arms around both their shoulders. "What happens in the simulation room _stays_ in the simulation room, 'kay? Group hug!"

He managed to pull everyone in and soon they were all laughing over Beca's "This is so queerballs" comment before splitting up and heading to their rooms. Although the danger of fighting the Heartless was only simulated, the actual effort of fighting was real, so they all needed a good scrubbing under a relaxing hot shower before they all headed to dinner.

* * *

Feeling refreshed and cozy in her old high school hoodie and a pair of shorts, Beca closed the door to her room behind her. Her mouth watered at the anticipation of food, but she had barely taken three steps when she was greeted by a voice in the hallway.

"You guys been training again?"

Beca whipped her head around to look behind her, but there was no one there.

"Up here," said the voice.

She tilted her head up to find Bumper casually hanging upside down, with his hands and feet sticking to the ceiling. He hadn't been able to do that before the Professor agreed to train the Beta team, too, and most of the students agreed that Bumper's new technique was more disgusting than it was useful.

Beca smirked up at him. "Back from the mission, I see. I'm surprised your slime can withstand your weight."

"You would be surprised by a lot of things, Mitchell," the toad-boy retorted. But, as though disproving his point, Bumper slowly started dripping down. To save himself the humiliation, he dropped down to the adjacent wall and jumped off, landing upright with a light _squish_ and ruining the carpet.

"So, you Alpha guys seem to be training a _lot_ lately," he said, quickening his pace to catch up to Beca, who had started making her way to the dining hall during his descent. "Why's that?"

"Beats hanging out with you."

Bumper scowled at the insult before twisting his face into smug grin a second later. "Well, you're in luck then. I'm going home for winter break."

"Aww, is that why you ambushed me?" teased Beca, jumping over the bannister to get downstairs—and hopefully away from Bumper—faster. Unfortunately, leaping down from the second floor was just as easy for him as it was for her. "Wanted to wish me a happy holidays, did you?"

"You wish," snorted Bumper, sending a disgustingly slimy booger onto a nearby painting of a horse. "But you'd get one in exchange for a kiss under the mistletoe…"

Bumper stopped walking and pointed upward at the mistletoe hanging above the archway that led to the dining hall. Some of the students that were already seated at the dinner table turned in interest to watch.

"With extra tongue, if you want," Bumper added, waggling his eyebrows.

Beca rolled her eyes and faced him. Surprised though he was, thinking he was going to get his wish, the toad-boy smirked and licked his lips smugly. Instead, Beca literally _blew_ him a kiss, a hard one that sent him flying back to the other end of the hallway. The students watching the exchange laughed and cheered for Beca. A few, including Jesse, threw her high fives.

"Okay, okay. Everyone, settle down," Aubrey yelled above the noise, entering from the kitchen-side of the hall. She was frowning down at a clipboard she was holding and twirling a pen in her other hand. "Bumper—where's Bumper?"

"Here," the said student grumbled, trudging back into the hall with his hair stuck up at the back from his fall.

"Are your bags ready and packed?" Aubrey asked, fixing him with a steely glare.

"Yes, ma'am," he responded in a voice dripping with sarcasm.

Aubrey ignored the tone and checked off an item on her clipboard. "Okay, that leaves the final reminders for tomorrow. Those who will be taking the service to the airport should be in the foyer at eight AM _sharp_. I will not hesitate to tell the driver to leave if you aren't there on time. Those who will be fetched on campus should make sure that their parents or guardians are at the institute between eight and ten AM _only_. Any touring they might want should be done with Luke's or my supervision. Are we all clear?"

A collective grumble of "Yeah, we got it," greeted Aubrey's reminders. She nodded contentedly, which was the universal signal that everyone was free to commence dinner.

Jesse sidled up to Beca in line at the buffet, piling lasagna onto her plate, and said, "So Aubrey told me you're not going home for the break?"

"Dude, we're _from_ this town. Our parents are, like, twenty minutes away," Beca pointed out. "I could visit my mom any time but she's too busy at the hospital anyway. Plus, we're having the Professor's Christmas dinner thing here. Aren't your parents coming?"

"They are, but they still want me to spend time at home," he replied, rolling his eyes. "At least you'll have time to train."

"That's the idea. Anyone else staying with me?" she asked her particular group of friends hopefully once they were back at the table. To her surprise, Aubrey, Luke, Cynthia Rose, and Stacie all raised their hands.

"So _I'm_ the only one who's not going to be here?" whined Jesse.

"Well, Aubrey and I have spent a lot of Christmases here already," said Luke. "Besides, we want to focus on training."

"And Stacie and I are pretty much estranged from _our_ families," Cynthia Rose said with a nonchalant shrug.

"The closest thing we have to a home now is Barden or AMG's HQ," admitted Stacie.

"This sucks," said Jesse, his shoulders slumping.

Stacie waved a hand. "We're used to it."

"I meant for _me_. Talk about FOMO."

"—what?"

"Fear of missing out. It's when—" Jesse eagerly began to explain but his friends cut him off with their groans.

"Control your man-child, Posen," Beca reprimanded the blonde.

"Hey, he's _your_ best friend," she retorted, popping a baby carrot into her mouth.

* * *

 _DATE: 12/19/2011, 01:22PM_  
 _SUBJECTS: djbmitch VS. LukeTheGreat_  
 _ENVIRONMENT: Supermarket_  
 _TIME ELAPSED: -:14:02 (ongoing)_

Beca thrust her arms forward and attempted to stop Luke from charging at her with an air blast, but the Brit's strong metallic body was unaffected by it. Just a second before Luke's shoulder came in contact with her body, Beca did a backflip to avoid it. Luke, however, expected this dodge so he continued charging forward and leapt off of a pyramid of canned goods to grab Beca's ankle and pull her down.

But once Beca had landed, she let out a concentrated air bomb that blew Luke another couple of feet backward and crashing into a shelf of jarred pickles. Annoyed, he threw his arm forward, extending the metal as far as he could to strike Beca, but she was far too agile not to react in time; she simply hopped onto the metal rod, graceful as a bird, and tiptoed her way up Luke's arm speedily, and ending the short journey with an air kick to his head.

Stumbling back and tripping over one of the cans he had knocked off earlier, Luke fell backward. Down on the floor, he turned back into his fleshy self and called it. "All right, you win."

"Oh, come on!" Beca whined, though she extended her hand to help Luke to his feet anyway. "You know you can still fight. You weren't even trying!"

"I'm seriously tired, Becky," he said, cracking his neck and rubbing it. "I don't know, maybe I'm having an off day. Or maybe it's being smashed into a shelf of smelly pickle juice," he added, pulling the front of his shirt away from his chest with a disgusted expression.

"You and I used to have so much fun training together," Beca grumbled, levitating a pickle to take a bite, only to have it dissolve when the room turned back into a metal box. "Now it's gotten so routine."

"It's because you've probably already mastered most of your aerokinesis and its combat techniques," Luke said encouragingly as he led the way back to the control room. "And you're doing very well, in my opinion. Defensive fighting seems to be the right way to go."

"Yeah, but it's also the _boring_ way to go," she sighed as she shut down the simulator, which, before being turned off displayed their tally: it was now up to 4-3, but still in Luke's favor. "On the other hand, keep up your losing streak and I just might get us up to a tie."

Luke chuckled and made his way back to the elevator that led to the aboveground part of the mansion. He looked behind him and saw that Beca had hung back. "You're joining Cynthia Rose, Aubrey, and me Christmas shopping?"

"Nah, I think I'll train some more on my own—since you're being such a wuss right now," Beca added with a smirk. "You know, you might have to rethink your username 'cause you're not being so _great_ right now, Luke."

"Hey, I came up with that when I was thirteen," Luke defended with a laugh. "You're not allowed to make fun of it."

"Whatever, loser!" Beca waved, heading back to the room.

Luke just scoffed and turned around to enter the elevator when—

"Ow!"

His hand flew to the back of his neck, where something had hit him. His fingers clasped around a small battery. "What was _that_ for?" he called out, but Beca was pressing buttons in the command center to begin a new simulation. Luke just rolled his eyes in amusement and made his way back to the mansion.

* * *

 _DATE: 12/20/2011, 03:42PM_  
 _SUBJECTS: AubreyPosen VS. elastacie_  
 _ENVIRONMENT: Grand Canyon_  
 _TIME ELAPSED: -:09:56 (ongoing)_

Stacie flattened her body to easily dodge an incoming lightning bolt, then quickly coiled herself around Aubrey's body, pinning the blonde's arms to her sides, and squeezed tightly. Stacie knew that Aubrey wouldn't dare electrify her while they were in this position, because she would also shock herself. The blonde struggled for a moment before purposefully diving to the ground, hoping that Stacie would slacken her hold when they both hit the ground. When she didn't, Aubrey rolled over.

And over, and over. Aubrey kept rolling on the rough, uneven ground, on which rocks of various shapes and sizes dug painfully into both her and Stacie's flesh, until they hit a rock wall and Stacie finally loosened around her. Aubrey quickly took the opportunity and pushed the elastic girl off.

The wall they had hit was actually the bottom of a small cliff, and the force of their crashing into it caused a number of large and small rocks to loosen and cascade down its face. Stacie recovered quickly enough to flatten herself against the cliff to avoid getting showered, but Aubrey had no time to think and no other choice but to surround herself in her armor of electricity. The falling rocks disintegrated into pebbles upon hitting Aubrey's electric exoskeleton.

From her flattened position, Stacie watched curiously. This wasn't the first time Aubrey used this technique (she used it often during team simulations for similar defensive situations), but it was the first time Stacie was seeing it up close. She had previously thought that the technique involved skillfully controlling the electricity to stay as close to the body as possible without touching, but now Stacie could see that the electricity was coming in waves off of Aubrey's very _skin_.

Acting on impulse, Stacie shot through the cloud of dust that had formed around Aubrey at the end of the cascade and lunged at the blonde. Startled by the sight of Stacie's face appearing from the dust, Aubrey immediately disabled her electric armor and shielded her face with her arms instead.

But the attack never came.

"Stop the simulation."

Aubrey lowered her arms. "What—?" she began curiously, but was cut off by the glower on Stacie's face.

" _Simulation stopped_ ," announced the computerized voice. The rocky environment disappeared and was replaced by the familiar metal room. The screen that also served as the window to the command center displayed the text: 'Forfeit by elastacie. Tally: 1-0 (AubreyPosen)'.

"What's wrong?" Aubrey asked concernedly.

"Are you fucking kid— _you're taking it easy on me!_ " Stacie roared. Aubrey was surprised by the brunette's sudden anger.

"Stacie, what are you—?"

"Don't even fucking deny it," the brunette growled, stomping out of the simulation room. When she noticed Aubrey hot on her heels, she whirled around and faced her. "Your electric armor. It doesn't hurt you when you do it."

Aubrey shook her head in confusion. "Yeah, so what?"

"Why didn't you use it to get out of my hold?"

"I—" Aubrey opened and closed her mouth.

Stacie let out a mirthless chuckle. "I thought so. And when I was about to hit you, you shut it off and used your fucking _arms_ instead," she grabbed Aubrey's forearm and pulled it up to her face to emphasize how pathetic a move it was.

"Is it so hard to believe that I'm just _that_ stupid?" Aubrey joked half-heartedly in an attempt to diffuse the tension.

"Well, that _would_ explain why you've been hitting me with weak ass lightning bolts the entire time," Stacie retorted, "when you _know_ that a wave is more effective for flexible targets. Don't you teach this stuff to the students?"

Aubrey couldn't see a way out of it. "Look, so what if I was taking it just _a little_ bit easier on you than normal? You've been through a lot—"

"It's been a month, Aubrey! Look at me!" Stacie gestured up and down her body. "I'm _fine!_ In more ways than one," she added in an undertone, unable to pass up the opportunity to compliment herself. "And I don't appreciate being treated differently because of my injuries. I can take care of myself."

Aubrey nodded slowly and looked down at her feet. There was an uncomfortable pause, followed by a quiet apology from Aubrey.

Rather than accept it, Stacie shook her head and sighed. "What the hell happened to you?"

Aubrey's head shot up and she frowned at Stacie's question. "What do you mean?"

"When I first met you, you were an unapologetic tightass who did everything she could to get things done," said Stacie. " _You_ wanted this—you, and Beca, and Cynthia Rose, remember? If we're going to stand a chance against what's out there in the Realm of Darkness, we _all_ have to be in our best shape. Don't feel bad for me because I got hurt," she said seriously, "help me fight better so I don't have to get hurt _again_."

And with that, Stacie walked away, leaving a guilty looking Aubrey behind.

* * *

 _DATE: 12/21/2011, 2:10PM_  
 _SUBJECTS: JesseWayYouLikeIt VS. queer-flush_  
 _ENVIRONMENT: Times Square, New York City_  
 _TIME ELAPSED: -:05:23 (ongoing)_

"Dude, why are you even here?" Cynthia Rose asked, throwing two well-aimed cards at the legs of a medium-sized billboard, causing it to fall forward to where Jesse was standing.

She waited for the cloud of dust to dissipate before approaching the wreckage. The fallen billboard moved slightly and split apart down the middle, where Jesse had formed a rock tent to shield himself from the impact. Dusting off his shoulder, Jesse coughed, "I can't stand being at home. All my relatives are over for the holiday and it's so noisy I can't even watch a movie."

Out of all the people she had trained with, Cynthia Rose liked Jesse the most because it never felt like fighting; the boy just loved talking throughout any activity. It never affected their training and they both didn't bother with whoever won the round at the end.

Jesse raised his fists and sent three large rocks hurtling toward Cynthia Rose. "No one would even notice me being gone for a few hours."

Cynthia Rose dodged the first two rocks, grabbed the last one with her bare hands, and swung it back, fully charged. Jesse sent himself upward on a rock pillar to avoid getting hit, but that move proved to be a mistake, as the rock exploded at the base of the pillar.

"You've got to stop using that technique," reprimanded Cynthia Rose. "It's too easy to bring you down."

She watched as Jesse wobbled perilously on top before facing his palms downward and closing his fist, crushing the heavy rocks into fine pebbles to cushion his fall. Without waiting for him to reach the bottom, she sent a bomb die deep into the pile of soil and simultaneously pulled down a pair of goggles to protect her eyes from the impending cloud of dust.

She then jumped straight into it with one hand covering her nose and followed the sound of Jesse's coughing. She casually charged a Two of Hearts she had pulled from her sleeve and held it between her index and middle fingers. When she finally spotted Jesse through her goggles, she approached him from behind and put her hand on his shoulder, angling the glowing card against his neck.

"Game over," she said.

The dust and smoke around Jesse cleared enough for him to discover his defeated position. "Aw, man," he whined. "I think I set the record for quickest—"

Suddenly, they heard a loud screeching wail. They both looked toward the source of the noise, the sky. The dust swirling above them suddenly turned dark and only too late did they realize that a part of the billboard's structure that hadn't completely broken off from Cynthia Rose's cards earlier was about to crush them flat.

"Watch out!" yelled Jesse.

He had planned to bring Cynthia Rose and himself under another rock tent but just as he stretched his arms outward to grab her, the metal structure flew away and crashed into the side of a nearby building.

"What the—?"

"Did you just—?"

"I-I think I _did!_ "

* * *

"Seriously, Becs, how do I look?"

Beca removed one half of her headphones and looked up from the mix she'd been making to spare Jesse a once over. "You look fine."

It was the day before Christmas, and Beca and Jesse were hanging out in her room at the mansion. He had come over from his own home after lunch with a duffel bag full of clothes to ask for Beca's help on what to wear for the Professor's dinner that night.

"I don't want to just look _fine_ ," he said. "I want to look deserving of dating the Posens' daughter."

"Well, that tie makes you look like a gay mortician."

Jesse tore it off and said, "I knew it. I should just go with the bowtie, right?"

"Dude, I don't know," Beca said exasperatedly. "Do you really think they'd care about what you're wearing? If I were the Posens, I'd be more concerned about the _powers_ of the boy who's dating my daughter."

Jesse blinked. "Oh God, you're right! Earth manipulation is cool, right? I mean it's compatible with electricity, isn't it? And it's not like I only move dirt like before, I can do better things now, like—"

"I was thinking more along the lines of 'will he _hurt_ my daughter with those powers of his' but it's nice to know where your head's at," Beca cut in sarcastically. "Stop stressing out over whether you're good enough for Aubrey. You already got her, dude. You're _dating_. She likes you, okay? _You're good enough_."

Jesse exhaled. "Thanks, Becs. You always know what to say."

"Don't mention it," muttered Beca, turning back to her laptop. "Seriously, don't mention it. And don't mention anything else. I have less than four hours to finish these mixes for Luke so I need complete silence."

Jesse raised his eyebrows. "That's your Christmas gift? Way to spoil the surprise, by the way."

"Like you're any better," scoffed Beca. "You asked me what to get Stacie the minute you picked her name out of the hat."

"You're closer friends with her than I am," reasoned Jesse, checking out the new tie he put on in the mirror.

Beca only hummed in reply as she got back to working on her present.

* * *

"I thought I told you to wear a dress," Beca's mother said reprovingly when her daughter came down to greet her at the foyer hours later.

"I'm wearing a skirt, what more do you want from me, woman?"

"You'd have better luck draining the Pacific Ocean with a sieve than getting Beca to wear a dress," Jesse smirked as he followed behind Beca. "Nice to see you again, Mrs. Mitchell."

"Oh, Jesse, I haven't been a Mrs. Mitchell in over ten years so feel free to call me by my first name—Beca's mom," the woman joked, nonetheless giving Jesse a warm hug. "Hey, you've gotten bigger! Been working out?"

"Uh, I've been taking extra P.E. classes," Jesse sputtered out in a panic. Beca rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"Okay…"

When her mother moved over to greet Mr. and Mrs. Swanson, Beca turned to Jesse and punched him on the shoulder. "Extra P.E. classes? You _moron_."

"I panicked! I couldn't say it's from training. What the hell would I be training for?"

"Ever heard of sports?" she hissed, shoving her best friend into the parlor, which was beautifully decorated in red, green, and gold.

Aubrey's parents were already sitting on the sofa, conversing with Luke's. Being the only parents who were aware of the true purpose of the Barden Institute (Jesse hadn't told his, in solidarity with Beca) they spoke at length and in hushed tones regarding the progress of their children's abilities and future plans.

"How did it go with the Posens?" asked Beca, watching the prim couple tear away from their previous conversation to stand and greet her mother and Jesse's parents.

"We're about to find out," Jesse replied, taking a deep breath and straightening his posture self-consciously.

"Good luck."

Beca avoided any social interaction and sauntered off to the corner of the room, where a bored-looking Stacie was playing with the flame of a decorative candle. "Hey," she greeted the taller brunette. "You okay?"

Stacie looked up and shrugged.

"Not a fan of Christmas?"

"It's just different, not being with family and all," replied Stacie. "I know I said I'm used to it but… it still hits you hard sometimes. Especially now, seeing you guys with your parents."

Beca glanced over to where Stacie jerked her head at the Posens and Swansons, and nodded uncomfortably. Much like herself, it was unusual for Stacie to be expressing—much less sharing—her feelings openly, though it had always seemed to Beca to be less because of deep-seated emotional hurt and more because Stacie was just vastly more self-aware than she was.

 _The holidays bring something out in everyone, I guess_.

"It's okay, Beca, you don't have to say anything to cheer me up," Stacie laughed, seeing Beca's downcast expression.

"No, I just—" Beca paused, trying to find the right words; "I know we're no replacement for Christmas with your family but… you're not _not_ with family, you know?"

Stacie gave Beca a small but grateful smile. "Thanks, Beca." She then grew less melancholy and poked Beca playfully in the chest. "Who knew that inside that tiny body was a pretty big heart."

"Yeah, well, don't let any Heartless hear you say that," joked Beca. "They might want to take it."

A while later, the Professor excused himself from introducing his foreign business associate to Beca's mother and approached the door to greet Gail, who had just arrived from AMG's own Christmas party. After the students greeted her warmly, the Professor announced that dinner was about to be served. The guests filed into the dining hall, which was also festively decorated; the buffet table was gone and the sturdy wooden dining chairs replaced by fancier velvet ones.

Dinner went off without a hitch. Obviously, no one spoke about any 'special abilities' the children possessed; conversation at the table happened mostly among groups or in pairs. Beca, for instance, was learning about the fascinating, though confusing, world of international trade from both the Professor's German business associate and Luke's father, while the latter's wife was engaged in a light-hearted debate with the uncomfortable Aubrey, Jesse, and Luke about why her son wasn't the one Aubrey chose to date.

Ironically, Beca and Aubrey's mothers got along famously. It must have something to do with working in medicine, Beca assumed, since Mrs. Posen was a gynecologist back in Indiana and their topic of conversation was underpaid and under-appreciated nurses. Mr. Posen was himself participating in a lively discussion about the direction of future technology with the Professor and Gail, perhaps the best person he could possibly have that discussion with.

After a hearty dinner, the Professor invited them all to the living room for drinks. To Aubrey's delight, the Professor began to play Christmas songs on the piano by the fireplace, which answered Beca's question of whether the instrument was there for decorative purposes only. Jesse even surprised Aubrey—and delighted her parents—with his singing voice when he sang 'Baby It's Cold Outside' with her. (It also put his enthusiasm for joining Aubrey's a cappella group into context.)

Even Beca had to admit that it was pretty darn sweet. She settled into the fireside armchair comfortably and listened to their crooning. She reached over to take her third gingerbread cookie that night from the silver plate on the coffee table when her mother turned to her and frowned.

"I thought you hated gingerbread cookies?" she said. "If I'd known you liked them I would've a batch of your great-grandmother recipe."

Beca chewed, swallowed, and shrugged. "I dunno, I just felt like trying them tonight. They're not that bad, I guess." Reaching down for another, she caught Gail staring at her and they both looked away awkwardly, but not before Beca noticed something akin to sadness in the woman's eyes. Suddenly, her thoughts were brought to what Gail had told them all a month ago, after their fight in Florida.

Prior to the revelation, all the team knew about Gail was that, apart from owning one of the biggest private companies in the world, she was also the Professor's colleague from his younger days, who helped out occasionally with information on the dark creatures known as the Heartless, which was why she had sent Stacie and Cynthia Rose to Barden to monitor the situation. But after Gail had explained the _true_ story, and that they had lost their memories of it, Beca's impression of the woman had changed.

It wasn't a bad feeling—despite knowledge of the fact that she was kidnapped by Gail for possessing the Keyblade—but Beca felt like there was something more that the woman wasn't telling them. After all, she had only explained the mysterious 'Project' briefly and connected the failed experiment to the Heartless they destroyed.

 _Maybe it's about Chloe._

It was hard for Beca to wrap her head around the idea that there had been a _whole person_ missing from their memories, but Gail and the Professor had no reason to lie. Sure, they hadn't been able to provide proof of any of Chloe's existence, and they could easily be tricking them into entered the Realm of Darkness for whatever reason that benefited them, but something inside Beca—her gut or maybe her heart—was telling her that this all had to be true.

Somehow, Beca got the feeling that Chloe was that something. It didn't seem like Gail and the Professor would just lie about a person, and that made her wonder if _Chloe_ was the reason Gail was looking particularly dispirited. From the way Gail had described her, Chloe seemed to be a pretty nice girl who the woman saw fondly as a daughter. Beca understood that, while the holidays were depressing for someone like Stacie, at least she knew that her family was safe; Gail didn't quite have that luxury. The thought made Beca feel just as bad for Chloe, who must be going insane with loneliness wherever she was.

Beca sighed, reflecting on everything that had happened, everything that had changed in her life, in a matter of months at her new school—from developing and discovering more of her powers, to making friends, to having a chunk of her memories wiped out. But she knew she wouldn't trade it for anything less because, for once in her life, Beca felt like she had a real purpose.

And right now that purpose was to rescue her friend Chloe.

* * *

Just before the clock struck midnight, the students started taking out their presents. Beca's and Jesse's parents had already headed home after politely turning down the Professor's offer to stay in any of the numerous guest rooms at the mansion while Luke's and Aubrey's parents, who were staying overnight, also retired to their rooms, since the gift exchange was really an event for their children and their friends.

Aubrey lay her neatly wrapped gift on her lap. "All right, who wants to give theirs first?"

"There are only six of us, Aubrey, I don't—"

"Okay, I'll go first then," Aubrey interrupted, tossing the square-shaped box onto Beca's chest to cut her off.

Beca rolled her eyes and shook the gift experimentally. "Is it a… bomb? Let's see—oh, shit!" Her mouth dropped when she unwrapped the brand new noise-canceling headphones. "Now I have an actual excuse to ignore you guys while I'm doing my mixes! Thanks, Aubrey!"

Aubrey smiled smugly. "You're welcome, Beca. Now you it's your turn to give."

"So, speaking of mixes…" Beca threw a flat square-shaped object like a Frisbee toward Luke, who caught it between his palms. "It's homemade, by the way, so that's priceless stuff. Courtesy of DJ B-Mitch."

"Becky, this looks awesome!" said Luke, reading the track list. "Cheers, I can't wait to hear them! But a CD, _really_?" he added as a joke.

"Hey, it's symbolic. It's not like I could give you my flash drives."

Luke, in turn, gifted Cynthia Rose with a customized deck of lightweight titanium cards. "You can't use them as explosives, but I thought you'd like the option to slice through something."

Cynthia Rose had picked Jesse, and gave him a box set of classic Hollywood movies about real-life magicians. "Some of these are pretty accurate based on my experience with an actual traveling magic show," she told him.

Reading the blurbs at the back of the box distracted him for a while, but eventually Jesse handed Stacie a decorative (and very fragrant) gift basket, which they all eyed amusedly because it looked way prettier than any of the wrapping the others had done on their gifts, even Aubrey's.

"What? I like to gift-wrap," Jesse said defensively. He turned to Stacie and watched eagerly as she pulled on the bow. "It's a collection of bath salts, perfume, and lotion for your stretch marks—"

" _Excuse me?_ "

Beca guffawed, nearly choking on her eggnog in her surprise to learn that Jesse had taken her suggestion seriously. "Beca said you'd appreciate it!" he protested. "But knowing Beca, I thought it might've been a joke, so I got you another gift just in case." He brought out a small gift bag from underneath his chair.

Stacie opened it suspiciously and pulled out a dress. "Wow, Jesse, this is… actually really _pretty._ Thanks! And FYI I don't need the lotion, but I _am_ keeping the other stuff," she said, smelling the fragrant perfume.

"Damn, boy, you've got better taste than I do," Cynthia Rose laughed, when Stacie handed her the garment to look at.

"So I appreciate women's clothing, sue me," Jesse said, rolling his eyes. "And, sorry, but I sort of cheated 'cause I got Aubrey a gift, too."

"As well you should have," his girlfriend said satisfactorily.

"Ta-da!" Jesse handed Aubrey a rectangular gift and waited expectantly for her to finish carefully unwrapping it.

"Oh, my God!" Aubrey gasped excitedly, tearing the paper in a hurry once she realized what it covered. "It's the Organize Me 2012 organizer! Organized Living magazine gave this five out of five checkboxes!"

As the blonde marveled over the various doodads of the planner, Beca stage-whispered, "Does anyone else feel kind of _sad_ for Aubrey?" and Luke was overcome by a fit of laughter.

"This is just what I needed! Thank you, Jesse!" Aubrey ignored Beca's comment and hugged Jesse. It was a while before she remembered that the gift giving wasn't actually over. "Oh, sorry!" she exclaimed. "Stacie was last, which means…"

Everyone turned to the tall brunette, who had turned a very light pink. If they hadn't been drinking, Beca would have thought Stacie was blushing.

"Uh, yeah. I picked you—obviously," the brunette said, manually reaching across the coffee table to a small object wrapped in brown paper and string. She was still feeling a little awkward for overreacting and yelling at Aubrey the other day, so she mumbled out a "Merry Christmas, I guess," when she accepted the present.

Aubrey smiled softly at Stacie before looking down and untying the string. When she pulled apart the brown paper and saw what was inside, she froze.

"What is it?" Jesse asked, resting his chin gently on Aubrey's shoulder to see past the wrapper. "Oh, Alice in Wonderland! You love that, right? We watched the movie together like three times…"

Aubrey lifted the book off her lap and examined it gingerly. Where Beca saw a reddish old leather-bound book, Aubrey seemed to see something else entirely.

"You got Aubrey a children's book?" Beca asked—rhetorically, because everyone was still watching Aubrey turn the book over in her hands. Beca couldn't think of anyone less inclined to read a children's book than Aubrey.

"How did you…?" Aubrey began.

"Friend of a friend," Stacie said with a small shrug.

Beca looked from the book, to Aubrey's odd expression, and finally to Stacie's. Soon after, however, everyone started tidying up the wrappers and then heading back to their parents or rooms, so Beca didn't have much time to dwell on the question in her mind.

* * *

 **Response to reviews:**

xcombixgirlx (Sep. 5) – Thank you! Don't worry, forces are at work to fix your broken heart. :) And wait no more, for season two is ready for you!

Maggie (Sep. 5, 13, and 27) – It really means a lot to me that you continue supporting this story! :) Yeah, Beca doesn't seem to have any memory _at all_ of Chloe. :( While I can't justify writing a Bechloe story with the two not getting (back) together, that doesn't mean I can't have fun throwing them into difficult situations haha!

Nerdboss105 (Sep. 6) – Hey, Nerdboss105! Sorry for confusing you! I wanted to give the readers the option to quit the story at the end of "season" one/chapter 9 (before the Epilogue), because it could stand alone as a story anyway. But if they wanted to continue (like I'm assuming you do, thanks!) then this is season two! :) Think of it as a TV show that could get canceled or renewed at the end of every season haha. Thanks for reading!

* * *

 **A/N:** Okay, I'm back! As I mentioned in the last chapter, I try to finish at least one season before uploading, and as with most "sequels" I was very conscious of how this would compare to the first. Now that it's officially done, all I am willing to divulge is that I'm excited for you guys to get to the end! Personally, it _feels_ shorter than season one (I haven't checked the word count yet) but I might do something about that based on the reviews/comments I get along the way. Regardless, I think season two is a pretty good jump-off point for the next season/s while still building on the first.

As always, many thanks for reading! :)


	11. Some Move Forward Others, Back

**Chapter Eleven: Some Move Forward; Others, Back**

The three weeks after their Christmas dinner were spent much in the same way as the three weeks prior and the Alpha team kept their promise to rigorously train for what was to come. The only difference was that they had rung in the New Year by entering the Realm of Darkness.

Their first trip inside the Realm was a fact-finding mission to see what it was like inside. To no one's surprise, it was dark; the ground was a dull and dry bed of grey rock and the pitch-black sky made only slightly less devoid of life by the wispy purple clouds. And because there was no heat or light source to be found anywhere, the Realm was freezing. They located a small pack of hound-like Heartless, the team took the opportunity to test their skill and found out that they were more or less ready to take on the actual Heartless.

Beca swung the Keyblade straight across the belly of the last of the flying Heartless. Unlike its simulated counterpart that Beca was used to, the creature released a heart after its dissolution, and Beca watched it float away before flying down to where her teammates were finishing up the ground-based Heartless that had attacked them.

"I think we've traveled enough distance for today," she huffed, wiping her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand. "Aubrey?"

Aubrey glanced at the display on her wrist and nodded. She took out a device the size and shape of a pen from her pocket and Jesse snapped his fingers to create a small hole in the ground, where she inserted the device snugly.

Despite the fact that the drones AMG had sent in to map and observe the Realm and its inhabitants gave them a clear idea of where to go, the Alpha team knew that they were in no way capable of going _all_ the way to the end in one go. By the drones' estimation, the entire journey would take days, considering the time they would spend fighting Heartless, which seemed to happen at almost every mile they traveled, and recovering from the fight.

After learning this, Gail had devised a clever solution to their problem. She divided the realm into sections based on the team's capabilities and stamina. After clearing each section, Aubrey would install the pen-shaped device that she had just placed on the ground, which would emit a pulse of manufactured light energy strong enough to repel—but not outright destroy—any Heartless within a certain radius of the device.

Gail's innovation allowed them to essentially clear a path through the Realm while building an invisible fence so that they wouldn't re-encounter any Heartless whenever they went back to the real world to recuperate. The ability to return home had greatly improved the team's morale, since gradually chipping away at the goal instead of undertaking it in one long marathon made it seem easier to achieve. But the catch—which was fortunate or unfortunate, depending on who saw it—was that, because the charges were made of only manufactured light, they could last for only twenty-two days. The fortunate side, for Gail, was that, with a limited number of timed charges, the students now had a more concrete deadline to finish their mission once they start it.

Aubrey pressed down on the top of the device and they watched as it emitted a wave of light that extended in all directions.

"Great. That's two down… only a _billion_ charges to go," sighed Jesse.

"Cheer up, Jesse." Beca patted him on the shoulder. "Let's take it one day at a time."

Jesse raised his eyebrow amusedly. Beca was not known for being patient. "Really? This, coming from you?"

Beca merely shrugged. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm excited. We're doing great so far against the Heartless; our only problem is that we need time to rest."

"Yeah, and I don't know about _you_ , but that's a pretty big problem," laughed Jesse. "As awesome as that would be, we don't have unlimited stamina."

"That's why I've been telling you guys that we need to make this a straightforward journey," Beca argued lightly as they began heading back to the real world. "We should be, like, camping out here and stuff."

Aubrey scoffed. "And miss school? Yeah, right."

Beca rolled her eyes. She often forgot that a world—a _normal_ one compared to the one they were currently in—with homework, graduation, and college applications (at least on Jesse's part) still existed beyond the Corridor.

"Besides," chirped Jesse, "if we spent all our time here, you couldn't make your mixes!"

Beca looked away. "Yeah... I guess," she shrugged half-heartedly.

She was too embarrassed to admit to him that she had hit a sort of artist's block with her craft. With Luke's gift, she had an idea of what she wanted the mix to be, but lately anything she made for herself sounded unpleasantly monotonous or repetitive. It felt like there was something missing, but even though Beca had experienced a lack of inspiration plenty of times before, the absence of whatever that _something_ was felt more pronounced that anything she had experienced before. And, after comparing her mixes from those she'd made weeks before Christmas, Beca was certain that this block had something to do with the memories she lost.

* * *

About half an hour later, the Alpha team was exiting the Corridor of Darkness that connected the real world to the Realm of Darkness (Beca had discovered that the Keyblade was able to open as well as close them) when they were greeted by Gail and the Professor, with Charlene standing behind them as usual.

"How was the trip?" the Professor asked jovially, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Beca would never understand how a man could be so cheerful when his students had just come from a dangerous, life-threatening journey into a world of pure darkness—on his bidding, for that matter.

"Smoothly, sir," Aubrey answered promptly.. "We just got tired. Sorry."

"No need to apologize," said Gail, holding a hand up. "Although I hope you still have some energy left for a mission."

Jesse couldn't hold back his groan.

"It's pretty easy, I promise," assured the Professor. "It's just that we're all out of manpower right now. See, I sent Team Beta to the Yukon—"

Beca, Jesse, and Stacie didn't bother hiding their gleeful snorts at the thought of Bumper freezing his ass off up north.

"—and a hole opened up somewhere in Central America right after you guys entered the Realm," continued the Professor. "It was quite small so we hoped it would go away but now it's developed into something quite concerning."

Beca sighed. If it was a mission involving a rip that needed to be closed directly, then she was surely required to go.

"Sorry, Beca," Gail smiled apologetically.

"It's okay. Burden of being the chosen one, right?" she joked. Then she looked around at her teammates and suggested, "If it's really that easy, maybe we don't _all_ have to go?"

"That's true," Gail nodded and said to the others, "Who's up for another mission tonight?"

"I'm not that tired," shrugged Luke. "I can go."

"Then that means I'm staying," said Aubrey.

"I'll go, too," said Stacie, stretching her arms and legs. "I've still got a lot of fight left in me tonight."

Jesse and Cynthia Rose also opted to stay behind with Aubrey, so Beca, Luke, and Stacie followed Gail to the hangar.

* * *

"We're using the new AMG jet?" Stacie asked excitedly.

"Yup," said Gail. "We can't waste any time, otherwise we wouldn't have asked you immediately after your trip inside the Realm."

"The AMG jet can travel at almost twice the speed of sound," Stacie explained to the other two, her voice tinged with awe and excitement.

"Which is a _secret_ ," Gail added, raising an eyebrow at Stacie, who simply waved her hand.

"Doesn't matter, the FAA will lighten up eventually," the brunette said offhandedly. "The point is, we can be there in... wait, where _are_ we going exactly?"

"It's a little-known island country south of the border called Saint John's Island," answered Gail, leading them to the partially built underground hangar where she had parked the jet. Since teaming up with the Professor, she and AMG had invested large amounts of money—in secret—to develop the Institute's facilities. The highly-customized jet was only one of the new toys the students had gotten over the past several weeks.

"Oh, my God—we're going to the Caribbean?!" Stacie squealed, stopping dead in her tracks. "Do you think we can stay overnight? I can go grab my bikini real quick—"

"I'm afraid you're thinking of _Saint John_ in the Virgin Islands, dear," Gail corrected with a chuckle as she led them into the plane's cabin. "Granted, there are quite a few Saint John's Islands in the world, but the one we're heading to is off the west coast of Guatemala. I'm afraid its beaches are rather underdeveloped for your taste."

Beca laughed at the Stacie's crestfallen expression, but Luke frowned. "I don't think I've ever heard of that country before," he said.

"Its official name in the papers is Isla de San Juan, which is Spanish for Saint John's Island," explained Gail, motioning them all to take a seat as the jet prepared for takeoff. "I spent a few months there back when AMG was helping with disease control in developing countries. Their economy has improved a lot in the past ten years, thanks to a surge in private investments, but there is still a large slum population in the outskirts of the capital city."

"I'm guessing that's where the hole opened up," said Beca, taking a seat across the aisle from Gail's.

"Let's just say there's a growing tension between the haves and have-nots," Gail muttered darkly. "The trip will take a little over an hour so you guys can rest a bit if you want to. There's also food in the back—"

Beca was already out of her seat and sprinting toward the food before Gail could finish her sentence.

* * *

"Hey, you should rest up. Give me a turn."

Stacie twisted her neck by a hundred and eighty degrees to see Luke standing on the perimeter of the training mat, holding out a bottle of water. "Thanks," she said, uncoiling herself from the depressed punching bag and taking the bottle to gulp down half of its contents. "Is Beca coming?"

"Nah, she fell asleep after stuffing her face."

They shared a laugh and Luke took his position in front of the punching bag. "Do all AMG jets have training rooms in them?" he asked, making two swift punches with his bare (non-metallic) hands.

"Just this one, I think. Gail likes spoiling us."

"I noticed. Why is that?"

Stacie shrugged. "Even before CR and I were sent here, she'd been concerned about Barden. And its students."

"I wonder why," said Luke, ramming into the punching bag with his shoulder and lifting the bag off its hook.

"Wow, you might not even need your metal to fight anymore," commented Stacie. "You're strong enough as it is."

Luke shook his head humbly. "How about you? How's your—?"

"I swear to God, Luke, if you ask me about my rehab—"

"I was going to ask about your powers!" he insisted. "Trust me, I don't want to get chewed out the way Aubrey did."

Stacie glared at him. "I regret telling you about that, by the way."

"Regardless… any progress on your dermal armor?"

"As a matter of fact," Stacie smirked, "check it."

She stretched her torso high enough into the air that her shirt lifted up to expose a wide expanse of skin. "Hit me," she said simply.

"What?"

"You asked about my progress. Now hit me."

Luke eyed Stacie's smooth abdomen hesitantly and gave it an experimental punch.

"Come on, your _mom_ hits harder than that."

"I don't understand how that is insulting."

"Neither do I, but _come on_! Hit me like you mean it!"

Luke gave the next punch his one hundred percent effort. His fist collided painfully with Stacie's body and didn't even make a mark on her. "Fuck!" he cursed, wringing his hand in pain.

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry!" Stacie apologized, shrinking back to normal. "I'll get you some ice—"

"No, no, I think it's fine," Luke waved her off after checking the bones on his punching hand. "But damn, those are some tight abs you've got."

Stacie laughed. "That means a lot, coming from you."

"Let's see if they can take on metal?" Luke challenged.

"Bring it on!"

After a few more rounds of testing Stacie's new ability, the two sat side by side on the floor to cool down.

"Nothing can hurt me now," she said proudly, wiping herself down with a towel.

Luke turned to look at her. He deliberated asking if she meant something more than the obvious, but in the end he decided against it. Stacie wasn't the type to use non-risqué double entendres; if she meant what he thought she meant, he had no doubt that she would say it.

Suddenly, they heard Gail's voice from the speakers by the door. "Guys, we're landing in five minutes. Meet up at the cabin."

"Let's go." The moment Luke pushed himself off the floor, the small dumbbell rack against the wall tipped over. They turned their heads at the low, rumbling noise to see the dumbbells rolling toward them.

"What the hell?" Stacie instinctively backed away, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth, the weights skidded back against the wall where they remained motionless. "I repeat, _what_ the hell?"

Luke turned to Stacie with his eyes wide. "Was that me or you?"

"I didn't feel anything," she replied. "It must be you."

"But I've reached the height of my powers," frowned Luke. "There's nothing else for me to develop."

"Two minutes," came Gail's voice again. They heard a shuffling noise from the speakers, followed by a muffled, "Let me call them!" The audio cleared up again and their ears were greeted by Beca's post-nap energy high. "Luke! Stacie! Get your asses in here now! Oh, wait, don't tell me you guys are fu—"

" _Beca!_ "

Luke and Stacie rolled their eyes. "We'll figure this out later," Stacie assured, motioning to the dumbbells. "First, let's go shut this hole. And by that I mean Beca's mouth."

* * *

"Hey, Jesse, are you really that tired?"

Jesse turned away from waving goodbye to Beca, Luke, and Stacie, and gave his girlfriend a knowing smirk. "What do you have in mind?"

"Could you and Cynthia Rose handle the report by yourselves tonight?" said Aubrey. "I have a ton of readings to finish by Monday."

Jesse pouted. "Oh. I thought you wanted to do something together. I mean, it's the weekend after all."

"I'm sorry." Aubrey put her hand on Jesse's cheek affectionately. "How about tomorrow? I'll try to squeeze you in after lunch."

"Okeydokey," he crooned, kissing her on the nose as farewell before she retreated to her room.

The two left behind began preparing the report—a detailed record of any new findings they had while inside the Realm—in bored silence, at least until Jesse whispered excitedly to Cynthia Rose, "Hey, check this out."

Cynthia Rose looked up from watching the progress bar of the uploading file to see Jesse holding—or rather, _levitating_ his phone between his hands. "So you _can_ control metal!" she exclaimed in surprise. But just as the words left her mouth, Jesse fumbled his hold and ended up playing a game of hot potato with his phone before ultimately dropping it on the floor.

"I think so!" he said, once he recovered. "I've been practicing in secret—so don't tell anyone yet, okay?"

"Why not? Don't you want Luke to help you develop it? I'm sure he'd have tons of tips for you."

"I want to be able to do it properly when I tell everyone," he answered determinedly. "So it will blow their minds."

Cynthia Rose just shook her head in amusement and turned back to the screen.

"I know it's kind of stupid but," Jesse continued tentatively, "I think being able to control metal is a symbol that I've finally… beaten Luke."

Cynthia Rose swiveled back around slowly and raised her eyebrow. It was a running joke in the group that Jesse would always try to one-up Luke in everything, but she had always thought it was because of the whole Luke-Aubrey-Jesse love triangle thing— _typical white people drama_ , she thought—but looking at him now it became apparent that, even after he already got the girl, Jesse was still eager to prove himself better than Luke.

She normally preferred to keep out of their drama, but at least it beat paperwork. "What?" she said.

"Well, being able to _control_ metal is pretty much the same as _being_ metal, only I'm more flexible," said Jesse. It sounded like he had been thinking about the difference for a while. "And Luke can't control earth so I've not only got _his_ power, I've got _more_ than his power."

"Why are you so hung up on being better than Luke anyway? I thought you two were just playing around."

"That's a fair question," Jesse nodded with a somewhat sad smile. "I guess it's because… Luke is just _that guy_ , you know? The stereotypical cool, handsome, popular athlete who always gets the girl—only he isn't a jerk. He's actually a perfect gentleman and all of _that_ makes it kind of hard to compete," he added with a sigh.

"So, what, you're jealous of him?"

Jesse didn't answer; for a while he was just staring thoughtfully into space. "You know, the first time I met Aubrey—she was with Luke, and they had come over to this empty lot Beca and I used to hang out and test our powers in—she was just so…" He threw up his hands, not quite finding the right words. "I mean she looked at me like I was dirt on her shoe but that only made it worse. Or better, I don't know."

"But you _have_ Aubrey now," Cynthia Rose pointed out. "And she's been friends with Luke _way_ longer than she's known you but nothing ever happened between them. What are you still afraid of?"

"That she's just secretly waiting for him to admit his feelings for her because she doesn't want to put hers out there first?" he blurted out quickly, again as though he had been mulling the idea for a long time. "'Cause she wants Luke to see what he's missing and realize that they belong together? That this is actually _their_ love story and I'm the foil to Luke's hero? I could go on forever with the list of ways I could lose her."

"Oh, boy," Cynthia Rose exhaled through her teeth. "That's a _lot_ of crazy in that head of yours, Jesse. And, seriously, man, you better stop thinking of your life as some cliché bullshit movie, otherwise you _are_ going to lose her. Not to some other guy, but because you never trusted her feelings for you."

Jesse hung his head. "I know…"

"Then act on what you know, dammit!" she yelled encouragingly. "This group's got too much drama already, what with forgetting a whole person and dealing with some dark shit every other day. Ain't nobody got time for this." She rose from her chair and rubbed her eyes sleepily. "You finish the report. It'll give you a distraction and hopefully help you get your—whatever kind of inferiority complex this is—together."

Jesse was left with a sheepish expression on his face as he took Cynthia Rose's place in front of the computer. Cynthia Rose, on the other hand, was just glad she had thought of a way to escape vapid reporting duties to catch some much-needed R&R.

* * *

It was evening by the time the jet made its descent toward the island and landed on a deserted plain about a mile beyond the capital city's borders. After stepping onto the dead grass, Beca, Luke, Stacie, and Gail had nothing but the moonlight and a few lights on the plane's exterior aiding their vision.

"The shanties are a couple of hundred yards that way," Gail informed them, pointing over to faint glow in the distance. "I'm sure we can find the rip easily once we're there."

"Don't they have an airport here?" asked Beca, kicking away the tall weeds from her itchy ankles.

"I'd rather not let anyone know we're here," said Gail, switching on a flashlight and gesturing them to do the same. "While the media here are still relatively slow on the uptake, it's better to be safe than sorry."

They made their own path through the terrain, swatting away bugs and shaking their legs free from tangles of weeds, until they met a dirt path that seemed to lead to the city. They followed it until they arrived at a shantytown that sprawled along one side of a wide, river that was soiled with garbage and bounded on the other side by a tall clay wall.

Looking at it, Beca judged that there were possibly hundreds of small, metal makeshift homes cramped together within. Electricity was clearly a luxury for its inhabitants, as she only frequently saw small flickers of candlelight; the only sufficiently lit part of the town was the area close to the wall, thanks to the light coming from one of the lamps attached to the top of the wall.

"They weren't subtle about wanting them out, huh," she said, prickled by the injustice.

"The city government built this wall after they relocated them from their old homes inside. They did it for the foreign investors," Gail explained sadly. "They needed to show the prettier side of life on the island and not the slums."

They tossed a few large stones at the shallower end of the river so they could get across; Stacie and Beca were discouraged from using their powers to cross in case someone was watching them. Beca pointed her wrist across the river and squinted her eyes at the darkness but she couldn't see anything, much less an observer. Nevertheless, they crossed on foot and walked through the shanty's narrow streets. Gail had told them to switch off their flashlights to avoid drawing attention, but it proved unnecessary since they never met a soul.

Eventually, they arrived at what seemed like a small town center where people would presumably gather. Garbage littered the smoothened ground and wooden chairs were toppled over; even considering its destitute environment, the plaza looked like it had recently been hit by a cyclone. And oddly enough, the team still hadn't encountered any Heartless.

"I thought you said this was an emergency?" asked Stacie. "Nothing seems to be going on here."

Gail didn't answer immediately. She looked around at the mess and muttered, "Are we too late?"

Suddenly, a bright light flashed from around the corner. They knew in an instant that it wasn't artificial, and Luke and Stacia started toward it but discovered that it was just Beca, who came around the corner with her Keyblade in hand.

"Found the hole. Closed it," she announced dryly.

The other three looked at her in surprise. "Already?"

"It's not rocket science," she shrugged, "it's only… well, I don't know what kind of weird science this is exactly—but are we done here?" She glanced left and right. "All the Heartless are gone."

"We see that, thanks," Stacie said sarcastically. "And we're wondering the same thing. Gail?"

The blonde woman squinted at one of the houses. "Maybe we should ask some of the locals," she said. "How's your Spanish?"

Beca shook her head. "Never took it."

"What do you mean you never took it?" frowned Luke. "Your transcript says you got a B in Spanish 1."

" _You read my transcript?_ "

"She actually had someone else take it for her," clarified Stacie.

" _How did you—?_ "

"Hang on," Luke raised his palm. "So you're technically a few credits short—"

While the three debated over issues on privacy and whether or not Beca would be allowed to graduate in a few months, Gail walked closer to one of the houses nearby and tried knocking. She kept trying, going through the neighborhood one house at a time, until she finally encountered an old woman who had been sleeping outside. With the students still in the plaza arguing, she simply used a translating app on her phone.

"Well, it turns out that everybody was in _hiding_ ," Gail explained to the three minutes later. "They heard marching and thought it was a police raid or something. Everyone has either left the town temporarily or is hiding somewhere deep in these neighborhoods."

"Marching? They must have been those low-leveled, soldier-type Heartless then," said Luke, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "But where are they now?"

"Well, the locals definitely didn't do anything about it, and no hearts seem to be taken."

"Do you think they could have gone back _inside_ the Realm?" asked Stacie.

"But then why bother coming out at all?" frowned Beca.

"Could you guys keep looking around while I do the clean up?" Gail suggested.

The clean up was their shorthand for making sure that the world was kept ignorant of the existences of Heartless and portals to other worlds. Given the increase in Heartless activity since Chloe's had broken through the Door, the number of mysterious events would have been too great not to prompt an investigation from local officials, so, using a modified version of the technology AMG used to implant memories into Chloe, Gail had created a way to keep their missions under wrap from the public. Erasing memories by force was, of course, impossible, but it _was_ possible to combine haziness with fake memories.

"Do you _have_ to clean up?" asked Stacie, hanging back while Beca and Luke wandered off. "Nobody saw anything anyway."

"Better safe than sorry," said Gail. "You know, we do these clean ups not just to keep the Heartless from the public eye—but also to keep _you_ guys away from it."

"Mm-hm. And how much does it cost AMG every time you do a clean up?"

Gail threw her a calculating look. Stacie had always been her cheekier protégé; 'smart as a whip with an ass that won't quit' was how a colleague at AMG once described the young brunette—and that was after knowing her for only five minutes. She looked at things in the big picture and always seemed to be two steps ahead of any intelligent conversation. So it was no mystery to Gail what Stacie was implying.

"There are more important things in the world than money," was all she said in reply. "Besides, once Chloe gets back she might be able to do this more, uh," she gave Stacie a look, " _cost-efficiently_."

"Chloe can alter memories?" Stacie asked, surprised.

"Eventually," replied Gail. "Chloe, as a child, was mostly a very powerful telekinetic, but she wasn't too shabby at telepathy, either. At a young age, being able to read minds, even accidentally, is no joke. With a bit of training, she could be doing extremely powerful stuff."

Stacie hummed. "Someone with that much power… no wonder you and the Professor kept her locked up."

Gail turned her head away from the clean up to gauge Stacie's expression. Despite her tone lacking any accusatory tinge, Gail couldn't help but feel defensive against it. "That _wasn't_ the reason we kept her away from society," she said firmly. "Look, I know our explanation was a bit stingy and that you may not remember the times I took you and Cynthia Rose to see Chloe at the facility, but I really hope you believe that I did what I thought was best."

Stacie seemed to backtrack and raised her hands in a pacifying gesture. "Oh, no. I wasn't insinuating anything, Gail," she said. "I'm just saying, when we _do_ get Chloe back, we need to watch out for people who might want to take advantage of her—I mean, sure, the Professor himself tried, but who knows, there might be other people out there who would want to get their hands on Chloe if they ever found out about what she could do."

Gail nodded. "That's why I'm here, Stacie. I plan to make sure that Chloe is safe from the moment we get to her, to the end of her days."

Stacie smiled and nodded satisfactorily.

"Uh, Gail," Beca called from one of the narrow streets behind them, "I think something's going on in the news, follow me."

As they made their way to the center of a cluster of shoddily built houses, the radio on Gail's hip sounded with an announcement from the pilot of the AMG jet. "Ma'am, the radar is picking up on another dark mass in the city."

"I think that's what the news is reporting," said Luke, meeting them halfway and gesturing toward an old TV set that the locals had gathered around outside one of the houses. The display was terrible but it was enough for them to see panic in the streets of a much better lit city.

"Is that satellite TV?" Gail asked, squinting. When Beca nodded, Gail instructed her to take the signal out so the locals couldn't see any more of the news. Then she quickly turned to the others and said, "The city is just beyond the walls. Beca, could you fly ahead and tell us the exact location within the city? I'm going to have to do some extra clean up after this."

Beca nodded and took off into the air immediately. The cloudy night made it easier to go undetected as she flew toward the city. Once she was in sight of paved roads and bright lights, she lowered her altitude and glided through the city's skyscrapers. Beca also had no difficulty locating the rip in the city; she just traced the traffic jam it had caused until she arrived at the gridlock around which local news reporters were already beginning to crowd.

 _This might be harder for Gail to clean up_ , she thought grimly as she relayed the coordinates to her teammates via the device on her wrist.

Beca landed a few blocks away from the commotion and disposed of every Heartless that she came across on the way. Most of them were just causing a mess, smashing the windows of various establishments or knocking down lampposts, but others had begun attacking humans. Beca went for those first, careful to use only her Keyblade and not her aerokinesis, as it was easier to befuddle memories of a tiny, pale, sword-wielding girl than a flying, air-controlling one.

After a while, the crowds of both Heartless and people thinned. It seemed that everyone had finally been graced with the common sense to leave their car and run in the opposite direction. With abandoned cars and shops on either side of her, Beca felt like the last woman in a post-apocalyptic city as she walked casually toward the hole.

"Oye!"

She turned in surprise to see a man calling her from the rolled down window of a limousine. Beca couldn't tell much from the shadowed face behind expensive-looking sunglasses, but the man had perfectly coiffed jet-black hair and thick eyebrows. From what Beca could see through the half-open door at the other end of the vehicle, the man's driver had bailed but he was also either too lazy to, or incapable of, leaving his car.

"Ah… What are you doing?" he said in a heavily accented English, seeing that Beca was obviously out of place. "There is danger that way."

Beca chewed her bottom lip. They had been told not to interact with locals as much as possible when they had missions abroad, since meeting a foreigner could be too out of the ordinary and difficult to forget. Still, he was only one man and, given how wealthy he looked, probably had better things to think about. "I'm here to end the danger, sir," she replied gingerly.

The man frowned. "But you are very small—"

Beca rolled her eyes.

"—how are you going to stop it?"

"You see that hole?" She jerked her thumb toward the end of the street, past the vacant cars. "I'm going close it." She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger, and closed it to indicate her intention. However, when she turned her back to him, he spoke once more.

"The monsters," he said. "They killed the woman over there."

Beca whipped back around.

"Over there," he repeated, nodding at the side of the road where, indeed, a woman was crumpled on the ground. Beca glanced at the hole quickly to make sure nothing worse was coming out of it sprinting past the cars toward the victim. As discreetly as she could, she pressed the tip of the Keyblade onto the woman's chest to check if her heart was intact. It wasn't, which only meant there was still a Heartless trolling around with it somewhere.

Beca lifted the woman into a half-sitting position and placed her inside the shelter of a bakery.

"She'll be fine in a while," she assured the man after she returned to the street. Frankly, Beca was more concerned about whether he had just _assumed_ that the woman was attacked or if he actually witnessed it because, again, the latter was much harder to clean up.

"What is that?" the man asked, sticking his head further out his window to get a better look at Beca's Keyblade.

Beca sighed in frustration. "Look, dude, I have a job to do, okay? The more time I waste talking to you, the more problems we're _both_ gonna cause." Without waiting for an answer, she left him and sprinted down the street. Pointing her Keyblade at the center of the hole, as she had done on countless occasions, she let the inexplicable force behind her other mysterious ability seal the rip between the worlds.

In the distance, Beca heard the sounds of Luke and Stacie cleaning up the remaining Heartless and quickly made her way to them. "Where's Gail?" she asked, as the last of the hearts got released. She hoped it belonged to the woman she left at the bakery.

"Looking for a cell or radio tower," replied Luke. "She's going to broadcast the memory modifiers. It's an easier way to reach everybody in and out of the city."

"What's the story?" Beca had always found amusement in how Gail covered up Heartless-related incidents around the world—from giant sinkholes to riots over hockey games.

"Zoo breakout," said Stacie. "Consistent with the injuries and structural damage to the buildings."

"Nice."

They left Saint John's Island about an hour later, after Gail had made sure that every news channel in the city was talking about a zoo escape rather than a mysterious black hole emerging in the middle of a busy thoroughfare, and that there was absolutely no mention of said hole on any social networking site. It was a difficult and complicated task that broke a number of domestic and international laws, but there were more important things in the world than following rules.

* * *

Meanwhile, in her room back at the Barden mansion, Aubrey bit her lip and stared, with tear-filled eyes, down at the tiny white mouse on her palm.

"Fuck, I can't do this," she groaned, setting the mouse on her bedside table and wiping away unshed tears. She had already been feeling bad about lying to Jesse about the amount of readings she had; she didn't need this little guy to make her feel worse.

Brushed by a sudden wave of silliness, she responded to herself. "But Aubrey," she squeaked, acting out the mouse's side of the conversation. "How are you going to test your powers if not on me?"

Aubrey grimaced and held up the scalpel she had 'borrowed' from the infirmary. "You have a point, little mouse… but you know, you can still run away," she replied in her normal tone of voice. Much to her frustration, however, the rodent only looked up at her curiously with its beady red eyes and twitching whiskers.

Then it let out a little squeak. It wasn't a particularly loud one, but it the high-pitched cry brought to mind images of someone being tortured and tested on against their will.

"I guess I'd be no better than the Professor… if I hurt you for my own benefit," she murmured. With one last sigh, she put down the scalpel and picked up the mouse. "Never mind. I'm taking you back to the pet store tomorrow."

Too focused on making her way to the animal's cage on her desk, Aubrey stubbed her pinky toe painfully on the leg of the desk chair. She let of a string of expletives and shut her eyes against the pain before having a brilliant idea and shooting them open again. Quickly placing the mouse in its cage and limping over to her bed, she surveyed the damage on her foot. It wasn't cut, but it was definitely developing a purplish bruise.

"Here goes nothing." Taking careful control of the electrons surrounding her toe, Aubrey started off with a light jolt, slowly building from a tickle to a steady charge. After a few seconds, she stopped electrifying herself and wiggled her toes experimentally.

Her tiny toe was painless and good as new.

* * *

"I'm… _real_ now, right?"

Jack looked up from the tiny rabbit sculpture he was building with the sand. "Do you mean to ask if you are whole?"

"Yeah… and if, you know, I'm normal now," said Chloe. "I can _have_ memories, _make_ memories. I grow and age, and can die."

Jack looked at her thoughtfully before nodding. "Is this not what you wanted?"

"Of course it is," she said quickly. "I'm just curious… about my powers."

"Huh." Jack paused. "I never thought about that since you got here, to be honest."

"Seriously? After causing so many problems, not to mention _being the reason you're here_ , my powers haven't even crossed your mind?" Chloe asked skeptically.

"They did cross my mind, but I didn't think about you having them, or not having them, right now."

"Well, do you think I _do_ have them? I mean, is this like when Harry could conjure his Patronus because his past self witnessed his future self go to the then-present and do it?"

Jack scratched his head. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Harry Potter? Remember, you and Gail got me the books while you were doing the Project?" said Chloe. "You said you read it, too! Anyway," she continued, rolling her eyes when Jack remained confused, "I was wondering if I can do it _now_ because I've already done it in the past."

"Why don't you try it now?"

"But that's the thing; I don't know how," said Chloe simply. "My Heartless's powers were an extension of what had happened during the incident, right? But as a Nobody, I only had _knowledge_ of the fact that I had psychokinesis and telepathy. Gail didn't implant memories of me getting them while I was asleep, so I have one part of me that never learned to control it properly, and another side that doesn't remember.How the hell do I activate them _now_?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't have any powers myself but I assumed you just imagine it. Try moving that rock over there."

Chloe turned her concentration toward a small rock in the sand nearby, pulling her brows down and scrunching her nose. She imagined, with much detail, the rock flipping over in the sand. She imagined the physics of it, feeling the weight of the stone shift and seeing the soft ripples in the sand it would create once it fell. When it didn't work, she imagined having invisible arms that picked up the rock. That still didn't work. After repeated failures, her fists were now clenched and shaking with the effort of keeping her body from just lunging forward and moving the rock with her bare hands.

With a grunt, she gave up her efforts and turned to Jack sadly. "I don't think I have my powers anymore, Jack."

* * *

 **Response to reviews:**

 **xcombixgirlx** (Sep. 30) - I enjoyed writing the simulations, too! Especially coming up with their usernames haha. Yeah, unlike Beca, Chloe remembers everything since nothing was lost in translation when she became whole again. :) Gail has a pattern of not revealing critical information, doesn't she? Haha.

 **Maggie** (Oct. 1) - Wouldn't _that_ be a surprise for our protagonists? Haha. But then again, 'John' was a very common name for boys in their generation, I think, so It could just be my laziness in coming up with a unique name haha.


	12. Insidious

**Chapter Twelve: Insidious**

"Woohoo! Spring Break two-oh-twelve, here we go!" Clad in a striped green summer tank top and shorts, Bumper leapt from the top of the staircase and shot his tongue out toward the chandelier, using it as an anchor as he swung across the foyer. He landed beside his duffel bag by the front doors and raised his arms in triumph. "Panama City Bea-yuh-ch, baby!"

Beca rolled her eyes as she entered the foyer after finishing her eight AM Honors Physics class, in which she was doing surprisingly well. "Could you be any more of a college cliché, Bumper?" she said dryly.

"You're just jealous 'cause you can't come with us, Mitchell," the toad-boy smirked, swinging his bag over his shoulder.

" _Please_ , I'd rather—"

Whatever Beca would rather do was cut off by another "Spring Break! Woohoo!" from the top of the staircase. Three of her fellow female students were dressed down in short shorts and revealing tops, and each of them was carrying her own overstuffed beach bag and sashaying down the corridor. The dark-haired girl in the middle spontaneously spread her iridescent pixie wings and fluttered down to the foyer to smirk at Beca as well.

"Sorry, no _kids_ allowed," she said smugly, with a patronizing tilt of her head.

"Heartbreaking," deadpanned Beca.

Before the college senior could snap back, Luke entered with a clipboard in his hands, looking relieved to find Beca. "There you are," he said, sounding as though he'd been searching for her throughout the entire mansion.

"Hey, Luke!" The dark-haired pixie pushed the tiny brunette out of the way and greeted the Brit in a sugary sweet voice that had Beca cringing. "Wanna come down to Florida with us? It's gonna be fun!"

"I'm sure it would be, Alice," he said with a charming smile, then tapped the clipboard. "But sadly I've got a ton of work to do here. So have fun on my behalf, yeah?"

Alice gave him a pout while Bumper snorted. "Probably too embarrassed to be at the beach with _this_ gorgeous body, eh," he said, gesturing up and down himself.

Luke gave Bumper a once over.

"Here we go…" Beca muttered with an exasperated eye roll when she saw the challenging smirk on her teammate's face.

Lifting his shirt up to reveal his washboard abs, Luke offhandedly said, "I think I'm good."

Alice and her posse bit their bottom lips and fluttered their eyelashes as Bumper scowled.

" _Okay_ , let's go." Beca pushed her blond friend back where he came from. "Careful not to take home any STDs while you're down there," she added in a spiteful farewell to Alice.

"Where's Jesse?" Luke asked, once they began making their way to the Professor's antechamber alone.

"He said he wanted to get a couple of minutes to practice before the demo."

"Okay, well, the two of you are the only ones missing. Everyone else is waiting."

Beca looked down at the clipboard Luke was spinning between his palms. "Isn't that Aubrey's?"

"Yeah," smirked Luke. "I had a feeling Alice would invite me to their trip so I borrowed it to look genuinely busy."

Beca laughed and held her hand out for it. They made fun of the various things Aubrey meticulously kept track of and speculated the blonde's reactions should the clipboard mysteriously disappear, until Beca realized how long it had been since she had shared a lighthearted joke with Luke. The past few months had been all about their trips inside the Realm.

"Hey," she said distractedly, as they rounded the corner to the Professor's wing. "You know, things have been kinda hectic lately, with school and training and stuff—and I realized we've never really had much time to talk, just the two of us."

Luke glanced at her with mild confusion. "Is there something we need to talk about?"

"No... It's just... I guess I just want to ask, are you okay? I mean," Beca hesitated. "How are you feeling? With Jesse's new power and all…"

Jesse had made her promise not to spoil it for their review with the Professor and Gail, but like most secrets that occur in an enclosed space, it wasn't well-kept. The entire Alpha team already knew about Jesse's new power, a power that was very similar to Luke's. Luke smiled knowingly. At first, Beca thought nothing of it, but over the past few weeks she had begun noticing changes in her best friend. There was a swagger in his step and she was getting the impression that he was taking the playful competition between him and Luke more seriously than usual.

Luke, however, seemed unfazed. "Why wouldn't I be okay with it? We should all be pleased with his progress. It only makes the team better."

"I know… I guess I just thought you'd feel a little insecure." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Beca realized how she had chosen the least likely person to accuse of feeling _insecure;_ Luke was practically the poster boy for self-awareness. She shook her head with an apologetic chuckle. "You know what, forget it. Sorry for assuming that."

"We are all unique, with or without our powers," he said wisely and knowingly.

Beca nodded slowly. "So, it isn't uncommon to have similar powers with someone else?"

"I've never heard of it," Luke replied thoughtfully, "but if it is as Gail says and our powers are coded in our DNA, then perhaps Jesse and I share a genetic history."

"Well, I hope you don't think that we think you're any less useful—" Beca clamped her mouth shut, cursing her stupidity after she realized that it did _not_ sound as comforting as she thought it would be when said out loud.

Luke gave her a wonky, amused smile. "We don't rank ourselves by the _usefulness_ of our abilities, Beca" he reminded her. "In fact, I remember _someone_ who was worried about her powers not being good enough the first time she got here but now she's doing a great job leading the team."

"L-leading?" she sputtered. "My powers aren't that—"

"Being a leader is not about the strength of your powers, Beca, but the strength of your heart. Besides," he smirked cheekily, holding the door to the antechamber open for Beca, "I never said that girl was you."

Beca rolled her eyes but refrained from answering as the people waiting inside the room looked up from their conversations and greeted her. The Professor leapt from his armchair and rubbed his hands excitedly. "Good! We're all here. We can start the review!"

"We hope that the past four months have been very productive for all of you," Gail began in a professional tone. "And I hope I don't need to remind everyone how important it is for us to conduct the rescue as soon as possible."

The six members of Team Alpha nodded.

"So what have you been up to?" the Professor asked, leaning onto the back of his chair and looking expectantly at them.

As expected, Aubrey spoke on their behalf. "Well, sir, we began training with simulated Heartless four times a week last November through December. We moved on to actual Heartless inside the Realm of Darkness twice a week since New Year's," she reported formally. "We have succeeded in efficiently battling Heartless up to level thirteen, which, based on the drones' reports, we believe is enough to get us to the other side. Also, we have placed a total of eight charges within the Realm so far, which gives us a head start."

The Professor nodded satisfactorily. "And how about your individual progress?"

"As you know, sir, we've each been working on a certain milestone for our powers, which we would like to demonstrate for you now." Aubrey looked between him and Gail for confirmation to move forward with the demo and got it. "I'll start."

Aubrey promptly took Jesse by the wrist and made him stand at the center of the room with her. They had cleared away the furniture earlier, leaving a space large enough for them to demonstrate their powers without causing any unwanted accidents. "Are you sure you're okay with this?" she whispered, getting a confident nod from him in reply.

"I trust you," he said, giving her a quick peck on the lips before closing his eyes shut.

Aubrey stepped back a few paces and took a deep breath. Without further ado, she lunged forward and connected her fist with her boyfriend's cheek. They saw a brief sparkle of electricity surround her hand, protecting it, so her audience wasn't surprised that she didn't recoil despite the sickening smack they all heard when the punch landed. Jesse let out a painful cry and instinctively put his hand to his face, only to force it down again when he remembered that everyone had to see the large bruise that was quickly beginning to form under his eye.

"Sorry," Aubrey grimaced, before gently cupping his cheek with her hand and using the technique she had been working hard on for the past several weeks to perfect.

The reason she chose Jesse to demonstrate her new healing power—other than his own eagerness to be her guinea pig—was that needed to strongly focus on controlling the electrons. Going overboard would hurt and leave a nasty burn mark on the recipient's skin, or worse, and with him being her boyfriend there was an extra incentive not to do that.

About half a minute later, she lowered her hand and stepped away from Jesse to show everyone the result. Jesse rubbed his face and moved his jaw around, expecting pain but feeling none. He smiled triumphantly and gestured proudly at Aubrey. Amid her audience's applause, however, Aubrey's eagle-eyed sense of detail noticed a tiny discolored spot below Jesse's cheekbone. She pursed her lips in dissatisfaction but no one seemed to see what she saw.

"Electrical healing?" the Professor said in awe.

"I manipulate the electrons to stimulate molecules surrounding the injury to repair damaged cells," she explained. "It's only good for cuts and bruises; I'm not confident enough to try it on more serious injuries, though."

"Fantastic!" The Professor slapped his the arm of his chair excitedly. "Just when I thought you couldn't get any better, Aubrey."

In spite of herself, Aubrey nodded her head humbly and went to sit back down, leaving Jesse at the center to demonstrate his progress.

"This might be a little bit of surprise," he said as an introduction. Since his friends had already found out weeks ago, he decided to follow his girlfriend's advice and keep the demo simple for Gail and the Professor.

He raised his arm toward the decorative suit of armor standing by the door and carefully manipulated the sword away from its grip. He allowed the weapon to hover in front of him for a few moments to let it sink in that it was _metal,_ not earth, that he was controlling. Then he proceeded to bend the metal into different shapes—a rough shield, a wonky mace—until he found himself turning it into a sphere and pressing it against his palm. The cold metal sent a tingling sensation up his arm and, before he knew what he doing, the metal began to melt in his hand and slowly creep up his wrist and forearm, then toward his elbow, coating his entire arm in a metal skin—

"I think they get it."

Jesse was snapped out of his odd trance by a cold voice that came from… Stacie? He blinked twice and immediately returned the metal to its original form and place. He avoided everyone's eyes, knowing he had gone too far.

"So, you can manipulate metal," the Professor said slowly, looking neither impressed nor unimpressed. "What happened to—?"

"I can still control earth," Jesse answered immediately. "I've researched why. Metal is a subset of earth material, which is why I sort of _branched_ into it development-wise. And although the Realm is, like, mostly dirt and rock anyway, metal is physically stronger than earth, so now I can fight more Heartless more effectively."

The Professor seemed satisfied. "Excellent!"

As he turned to make his way back to the couch, Jesse didn't miss Gail's cautious, sideways glance at Luke before she moved her gaze to the irritable brunette beside him. "Stacie, how about you go next?" she said.

Stacie stood up roughly and walked to the center of the room. She stretched herself upward menacingly, swaying gently side to side like a cobra poised to attack, then nodded at Cynthia Rose, who flicked three of the cards Luke had given her on Christmas straight at her torso. The titanium cards, sharp and deadly as they were combined with Cynthia Rose's expert precision, simply clattered to the ground after hitting Stacie's abdomen.

"Dermal armor?" the Professor asked with raised eyebrows. "Very useful."

"It is," Stacie said emotionlessly. "But I'm also faster—"

She shot her arm at breakneck speed toward the suit of armor and coiled it around its waist a few times.

"—and stronger."

With a small tug, she constricted her arm around the metal, squeezing the suit of armor so tightly that its waist tightened to barely an inch in diameter, easily causing the metal remains to split in half and crash to the ground.

"Destruction of property aside, I am _very_ impressed," grinned the Professor. "Boy, this is fun! Who's next?"

Cynthia Rose raised her hand but didn't get off the couch. "Basically, to reduce my dependence on my cards and dice, which can easily run out during a fight, I learned to charge much larger objects at a faster rate. My current record is Bumper's Rubicon in three-point-two seconds."

Her teammates sniggered openly, remembering the expression on Bumper's face when he had walked into her demonstrating it to them the first time.

Gail frowned in confusion. "But I thought I saw it outside when I arrived? He was loading bags in it for their trip."

"I charged it, but I didn't let it explode," explained Cynthia Rose, demonstrating that very fact by placing a hand on the wooden coffee table and charging it. It glowed the familiar deep pink but didn't explode into pieces. "The timing is also something I've learned to control. Also, I took the liberty of using the chem lab AMG donated to Barden University to create customized bombs. I made them specially for Heartless so we humans aren't affected by them."

She held up a small green die. "This is a poison bomb—at least, poisonous to the Heartless. It emits pulses of manufactured light, which I, er, borrowed from AMG," she looked apologetically toward Gail, who merely shook her head in amusement. "It weakens the Heartless over time."

She held up a small ice-blue die next. "And this one is a freeze bomb, it stuns for about ten seconds. Luckily, the freezing point of Heartless is a lot higher than ours, so if one of us gets hit by accident, it'll be cold but not muchcolder than, say, hugging a block of ice naked." Her teammates winced at the imagery as she continued, "So far it only works on weaker Heartless, but it's good enough for a quick getaway if we were mobbed.

"I also modified their design so that they can only be activated when charged. So none of these idiots," she waved a hand at her teammates, "can cause an unwanted accident."

"Great initiative! Amazing work, Miss Adams—as usual!" the Professor said delightedly, before turning to Beca. He connected the tips of his fingers together and smiled. "And… the chosen one?"

Beca rolled her eyes as her friends hooted and cheered. She didn't understand why they had to make a whole show-and-tell spectacle out of their progress reports, but she supposed it gave the team a boost of confidence before their next undertaking.

"Well, I've pretty much mastered offensive and defensive aerokinesis," she informed them lazily, sending herself off the couch with a gust of wind. "So I've been focusing on what other useful things I could do with it. For instance," she gestured at her teammates, "we all experienced freezing our asses off in the Realm, what with it being eternally dark and all, so…"

Beca took a deep breath and spread her arms out in a circle. An almost visible gust of wind blew from her arms and everyone in the room felt warmth wash over them. She had learned this technique by accident after experimenting on the breathing exercises Luke had given her way back when.

"It's a lot warmer for me," she said, pointing her finger at her chest. "But at least I can keep everyone cozy for a few minutes. Also, I seem to be getting faster and faster," she added as an afterthought, looking slightly confused by her own abilities. "Luke and I think my aerokinesis propels me forward while cutting the air ahead so I could have almost zero resistance. It's the closest explanation to why I've been able to move so quickly."

Gail frowned. "Well, how fast _are_ you?"

"This fast," she replied, moving to stand behind the Professor, covering fifteen feet of distance in a single second. Gail knew it wasn't a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of speed, because she felt the wind rush from behind Beca. "It applies to my flight, too, but to a lesser degree. I don't even take the speeder most of the time," admitted Beca, referring to the all-terrain vehicle they used to travel inside the Realm.

"This is excellent. You all have progressed so far and, well, I do believe you are ready," concluded the Professor. He looked at Gail, who nodded solemnly, and turned back to his students. "You all understand what we are asking you to do today, right?"

The students exchanged confirming looks with each other before nodding determinedly.

"You are entering the Realm of Darkness," said Gail, with an air of cautious foreboding, "and not coming out until Chloe is with you."

* * *

The team had now been inside the Realm for over ten hours, and every second that passed set the record for the longest they had ever been inside at a single time. They had arrived, on their speeders, at their sixteen-mile checkpoint half an hour after leaving the real world, and they spent the succeeding hours continuing their pattern of fighting off Heartless and inserting more light charges. Exactly twenty days had passed since they inserted the first one, so they gave themselves the goal to make this their final trip lest they lose their convenient highway.

In order to achieve that goal, the team followed Aubrey's carefully laid out schedule and stopped at the twelfth hour to have their first 'night' inside the Realm. After ensuring that the pulses of light were doing their job to keep Heartless away, they located a decent patch of flat ground within the area to set up camp.

"Remember, guys, we only h-have thirty minutes of d-dinner," said Aubrey, her breath condensing in the cold air as she handed out food from the bags. "Then it's straight to the tents to get exactly seven and a half hours of sleep."

Jesse took a break from setting up the tents to wrap his jacket tighter around him. "Beca, c-could you warm us up a bit, p-please?" he stuttered.

"Oh! Yeah, sure." Beca hadn't noticed the cold, since her own breathing naturally warmed her body. She looked around at her teammates and saw that they were all shivering. "Oops. Sorry," she apologized before breathing in deeply and moving her arms in a circle like she did earlier that day in the real world.

The rest of the team sighed in relief as Beca's air warmed them all right up to their toes. Before it got too comfortable, however, Beca's stomach emitted an audible growl and she lowered her arms sheepishly. "I'll eat quickly," she promised, proceeding to wolf down her food. But in the few minutes that she was eating, the rest of them got colder and colder still.

"It w-wasn't this c-c-cold before, was it?" breathed Stacie, shoving her hands deeper into her jacket pocket.

"N-no," answered Aubrey. "I think b-being in here longer while not d-d-oing anything makes it c-colder."

The sound of a motor running and crunching rocks alerted them of Luke and Cynthia Rose's arrival on speeders.

"Any luck finding wood?" Jesse asked hopefully and sighed when Cynthia Rose shook her head.

Beca tried warming them up again but each breath only lasted a second now, and it wasn't exactly easy for her to keep doing it. Turning the empty food carton in her hands, she came up with an idea. "Hey, we can use these food containers! They're made of that biodegradable stuff, right, Bree?"

Aubrey nodded but seemed to hesitate, clearly not comfortable with burning anything. Sensing the blonde's pushback, Stacie added, "Come on, Bree, it's not like we're harming the _Earth's_ environment. If anything, destroying _this_ one would be a good thing."

In the end—and because she couldn't stand the cold anymore—Aubrey agreed and they were able to make a small campfire that kept them warm enough to feel comfortable to sleep. They knew they were never going to be comfortable _enough,_ but they willed themselves to try; they would still rather fight with full energy than continue on.

To save on space, they had decided to share tents in pairs, two to one, and since Jesse had a legitimate reason to be with Aubrey _this_ time, Luke had to find someone willing to share with him.

"I guess I'm the obvious choice, then," Cynthia Rose said with a small chuckle. "You can expect no funny business to go down in our tent. But dibs on the one farthest from those two."

The tradeoff of keeping as close to the fire was the diminished privacy, as their tents were set up only a few feet apart. Aubrey rolled her eyes at the insinuation and barked, "Everyone should be in their tents in three minutes!"

"I guess you're stuck with me," Stacie smiled at Beca, with her bag under one arm, and ducked into the remaining tent. "I hope you're not a noisy—"

Stacie was cut off by the very audible sound of Jesse's voice from the neighboring tent saying, "I love it when you're all bossy." She turned around just as Beca entered the tent herself, wearing a disgusted expression.

"Is it too late to rip the pegs off and move the tent five miles that way?" the smaller brunette asked, jerking her thumb in the opposite direction of their neighbors. "I can keep the two of us warm."

Stacie gave a soft chuckle and took out a tiny pouch from her bag. "I brought an extra pair of unused earplugs if you need them."

"Nah, I was just kidding," said Beca, waving her hand carelessly. "I'm not that worried. They haven't actually done anything yet, at least according to Jesse's _endless_ complaints."

"WE CAN HEAR YOU!" came Jesse's high-pitched irritated voice.

"So can we, you idiot," Beca yelled back. "So you better just follow your girlfriend's orders and go to sleep!"

Hearing agitated grumbling from the other side of the canvas, Stacie stifled a laugh, snuggled into her sleeping bag, and put on her sleeping mask. While Beca was in the middle of getting ready, a beeping noise went off and Aubrey yelled one last time, "Everybody should be sleeping now!"

"Does she really think we can sleep on cue, just like that?" Beca said out loud for all tents to hear. No one dared answer her, for fear of another lecture from Aubrey.

* * *

Beca appreciated the sun so much more after she felt the challenge of waking up in the cold, dark night, to Stacie shaking her out of her sleeping bag. "Wake up, Becs," the taller girl mumbled sleepily. "It's already Aubrey's second alarm. Three strikes you're out."

Beca pushed herself up despite her body's natural resistance and desire to not move. It wasn't like the hard ground was comfortable anyway. She ran a hand through her hair to tame it a bit before following Stacie out of the tent. "Good mor—" she began, but upon exiting the tent, she was greeted instead by a most somber sight.

Aubrey was hunched over the now-extinguished campfire, hoping to restart it with what little tinder was left; Cynthia Rose was handing small mugs to Luke and Stacie as though they were at a soup kitchen; and the dark skies and dull rocks did nothing to help the image of a destitute refugee camp. It was decidedly _not_ a good morning.

"God, this is bleak," muttered Beca, walking over to crouch beside Aubrey. "Need any help?"

Aubrey looked up in relief and said, "Yes! Could you warm us up?"

Beca smacked a hand to her forehead. "Yeah! Of course! Sorry, I keep forgetting."

As she did so, Jesse clambered out of his tent holding something rectangular in his hand. "Hey, Aub, is this yours?" he asked, flipping the object over and realizing it was a book when the pages fanned out.

"Careful!" Aubrey cried sharply, rushing forward and snatching the book out of his hands.

"Is that—the Alice in Wonderland book Stacie got you for Christmas?"

Everyone stopped what they were doing and froze—figuratively, although they almost could literally—to watch the scene unfold. Beca might have even heard an "Oh, shit" come from somewhere behind her.

"Yes," Aubrey said tersely. Her voice shook slightly but they couldn't tell if it was from anger or from the cold.

"Any particular reason why you brought it with you? In here?" Jesse asked in a dangerously low voice. "I mean, I don't see you bringing the planner _I_ got—"

" _God_ , Jesse! Will you just—!" Aubrey looked almost like she was about to pull her hair out, but instead she used her hands to shove him back into their tent for what little privacy it offered.

The four left stunned outside tried not to eavesdrop on the hissing argument happening just a few feet away from them, and chose to go back to whatever menial task they had been doing earlier. It only took a few seconds, though, before they realized that they couldn't resist huddling together to make sense of what had just happened.

"Okay, let me get this out of my system before it eats me up inside," Beca whispered quickly, officially starting the conversation, and turned to Stacie. "Is there something _going on_ between you and Aubrey?"

"No!" the accused girl whispered back indignantly. "Alice in Wonderland was her favorite childhood book, okay? So I thought it'd be a nice gesture if I got it for her as a Christmas gift. That's all."

"I don't remember her telling us her favorite childhood book," frowned Beca.

"She didn't."

"So how did you—?"

Beca and Cynthia Rose turned their heads to the only person who had known Aubrey as a child.

"I might have given Stacie the idea," Luke said reluctantly, then rounded on her. "But I didn't expect you to get her the exact same copy she had growing up!"

"I did?" Stacie asked, genuinely surprised. Then she smacked Luke on the shoulder. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

"How was I supposed to know you weren't just going to pick the first one off the shelf?"

"I meant you should have told me she had the _first_ edition!"

"Whoa, wait a second." Cynthia Rose held up her hand. "Girl, you got her a _first edition_? That's a Big Deal—capital B, capital D."

Beca nodded fervently. "First edition classics cost thousands! I would know; my dad was a literature professor."

"You don't spend thousands of dollars on just anybody," Cynthia Rose said knowingly.

"All I did was pull some strings from a friend of a friend back in New York and cash in a few IOU's," defended Stacie. "Seriously, guys, you're making a bigger deal out of this—"

"Shh!" Luke began waving his arms wildly. "They're coming back! Shut up, shut up!"

The three girls were more surprised by Luke's uncharacteristic jumpiness than by the fact that Aubrey and Jesse were about to witness their conspicuous huddle.

"Sorry about—what are you guys doing?" asked Aubrey, frowning upon seeing the huddle.

The guilty group simultaneously plastered on innocent, nonchalant faces and stared blankly at Aubrey and Jesse. The couple seemed to have worked things out—and then some. Both their faces were a little pink and it was likely not due to the cold. Aubrey's hair was unconvincingly tidy and she was biting her bottom lip to hide it from being visibly swollen. Jesse hadn't even bothered to fix the hair that stuck up at the back nor to wipe the goofy grin he had on his face.

"Just warmin' ourselves up!" said Luke in a cheery voice, encircling the girls with his arms and squeezing them tightly.

"Why didn't Beca just do that for you?" asked Jesse, finding amusement in his friends' awkward four-person hug.

Saving them from having to cook up a bullshit explanation, Beca's stomach made another audible rumble. "I, uh, had no energy?" she offered from under Luke's arm. After an awkward pause she cleared her throat and said more convincingly, "Like, are we going to eat or what?"

With that reminder, Aubrey glanced at her watch and ushered them all to have a quick 'breakfast' (it didn't matter what they called it since it was permanently evening in the Realm) and somehow managed to make everyone feel at fault for being six minutes behind schedule while not mentioning her spontaneous make out session with Jesse.

Fortunately, as they prepared themselves, the atmosphere around them returned to normal, but not without a little smoothing. Jesse apologized to Stacie for putting her at an awkward position, and in return Stacie assured him by recounting the argument she had with Aubrey a few days before Christmas and saying that she thought of the gift as a way to sincerely apologize. With the awkward morning behind them, the team continued on with their routine of fighting Heartless, setting up charges, and doing it all over again for a minimum of eight successful placements a day—according to Aubrey's schedule.

* * *

Before long, that schedule went from optimistic to downright impossible. Around their third day, the team started to realize that the Heartless in the Realm were stronger than their simulated counterparts. Some even displayed the ability to intelligently learn and adapt to their combat techniques. Fights were taking longer than their allotted time in Aubrey's strict schedule, which proportionately meant that recovery time did as well.

By the fourth day, they began to encounter Heartless that the AMG drones had never reported. They did not have a solid plan coming into those fights and, as was custom during their training, relied on the team's leader to yell out on-the-spot instructions. But even that strategy was becoming a problem, for there was a power struggle—or rather, a power catch-and-release—happening between Luke and Beca over the position of team leader that none of the others seemed to notice.

By default, Luke always led the team into the attack—it had always been that way, even during their missions in the real world. Aubrey took charge whenever it came to the more technical or managerial aspects of the team, such as filing reports or keeping inventory, but Luke had always been their combat leader. Beca only rarely took over command when either her instincts kicked in—which usually happened in dire situations—or her impatience did. But in the last few Heartless encounters, Luke had been subtly giving Beca the responsibility to declare the plan of action herself.

It didn't bother Beca… until it did.

They had just finished a particularly long and brutal fight with a flock of flying Heartless and Beca was exhausted from spending nearly an entire hour in midair. The team needed the advantage of having someone in the air and although Stacie could have tried, with the team running the clock already, Beca was the more efficient choice. But when she finally descended, hoping for a break, she was upset to find that the rest were all ready to move on to the next checkpoint.

"Come on guys! Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Aubrey called out, punctuating each yell with a loud clap to get everyone on the speeders. "Four more charges to the daily minimum!"

Beca didn't say anything despite her screaming muscles, because the mission was a _team_ effort and they had all agreed to keep going as long as majority of them still had the energy. But in her current state of exhaustion, the sound of Aubrey's commanding tone rubbed her the wrong way.

"You okay?" Cynthia Rose asked in concern, when Beca hopped onto the speeder with her, instead of flying ahead like she normally did.

Beca gave a small nod. "Just tired."

Cynthia Rose returned a sympathetic look and started the engine.

The next batch of Heartless to fight was, as usual, already waiting for them at the edge of the barrier of light created by the charge Aubrey had just set minutes ago. As they got further into the Realm of Darkness, the Heartless that were repelled by the charges grew bolder; rather than disperse and avoid the light, they waited at the edge, hungry for hearts.

These Heartless, which were mostly humanoid in shape and height except for their pitch-black skin, glowing yellow eyes, and long antennae stretching down their backs, were gathered by the dozens—a number that would have been a rare sight in the first two days but was now normal for the Alpha team to be up against.

They slowed their vehicles down as they approached the barrier, and Luke brought the speeder he was sharing with Stacie closer toward Cynthia Rose's. "I'm thinking we could do a counter-offensive or a flank," he said, cruising alongside them. "What do you think, Becky?"

Beca knew he didn't mean to add to her stress, but her exhaustion combined with the sudden responsibility of making the decision fell on her all at once and she snapped, "Why don't _you_ decide for once, Luke."

If the others noticed her unnecessary coldness, they didn't show it. The only sound that could be heard was the engine of the speeder, but that pretty much told Beca how they were all feeling. She felt her cheeks flush and, when Luke still hadn't said anything, quickly amended, "They look strong. I think a counter-offensive would be better."

* * *

The Heartless were indeed strong. Not only were they wickedly fast, they were also strongly resistant to their attacks and had seemingly unlimited stamina, which was more than the team could say about themselves, being on their sixth fight that day. Progress was moving at a snail's pace but Beca was still pissed about their last fight so she purposely didn't bother coming up with a new strategy.

She wanted to see how far Luke was willing to take it.

From the other side of the battlefield, Luke himself was pissed at Beca for acting so immaturely. He thought she would appreciate being prepped for leadership, especially since she had been so eager to get the team to agree to take on the mission in the first place. Thinking that Beca needed a lesson in humility, Luke said nothing about their disastrous attempts and let the fight run its course.

* * *

Jesse groaned painfully. He was ambushed by a group of Heartless during the fight and got his leg badly cut in the tussle. Aubrey was leaning over his lying form in the camp they had set up after clearing the area.

"Hold _still_ ," his girlfriend chastised as she struggled to maintain hold of the electrons around his leg.

"I _can't_ hold still because it hurts! Argh!" Pain shot down Jesse's leg when he moved to make that little outburst, causing Aubrey to lose focus and accidentally shock him. "Aubrey!"

"Don't yell at me right now, Jesse, I'm very stressed!"

"I wasn't _yelling_! I wasn't yelling," he repeated in an only slightly softer tone. "Just please hurry up."

Aubrey pursed her lips and did her best to close the wound and restore the muscle cells around it. She had left it only three-fourths of the way healed, partly to spite Jesse (because she made it so that he'd be left with an uncomfortable ache the rest of the day) and partly so she'd have the energy because she, too, was exhausted and the others had injuries as well.

Without another word to him, she stood up and walked over to the rest of the group—or rather, to Stacie and Cynthia Rose. "Where are Beca and Luke?" she asked Cynthia Rose, who was charging up a bunch of rocks in an attempt to create heat in Beca's absence. Unfortunately, they only ended up exploding into tiny pebbles.

"Having a 'talk,'" she sighed, giving up on the rocks and nodding to a huge one a few yards away.

Aubrey followed her nod to where Beca was leaning against a boulder with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face, while Luke stood in front of her with his hands on his hips, looking equally pissed. She decided not to comment and just asked her teammate, "Are you okay? Do you need me to heal anything?"

Cynthia Rose shook her head gratefully. "I'm fine, but you should check on Stacie."

Aubrey thus made her way toward the brunette, who was lying on her back nearby. Stacie's eyes were shut in concentration and she was taking slow, deliberate breaths.

"Hey," Aubrey greeted softly. "Need any help?"

Keeping her eyes closed, Stacie took another deep breath before answering, "I'm good—just rearranging some organs."

Aubrey grimaced. "Ouch. I didn't know that could happen."

Stacie opened her eyes. "Only when the fight gets too heavy for me to concentrate on keeping it tight," she winked, then sat up. "Trouble in paradise?" she asked, when Aubrey sat on the floor beside her and pulled her legs against her chest.

"Jesse just needs some time to heal a bit more."

"Is that why you were yelling at him earlier? Because he needs to _rest_ more?"

Aubrey's ears reddened. "Can we talk about something else?"

Stacie raised her eyebrows but nodded. She moved to cross her legs but winced painfully. "On second thought, maybe I'm not so good..." She rubbed her abdomen.

"Does it hurt?"

"It feels like... the worst cramping you could ever have plus how I imagine it feels for guys to get hit in the nuts."

Aubrey laughed at the description and obliged. She helped Stacie lie back down and rested her palm on Stacie's flat stomach.

A few seconds later, Stacie's pain was all gone and her energy even felt replenished. "Thanks! You're getting really good at that," she smiled.

"It's really quite simple," said Aubrey. "I just recharge the electrons around the pain to take away the pressure… at least, that's how I imagine it goes. But like I said before, I can't heal everything," she sighed. "Wounds and cuts are doable, but I can't do anything to affect viruses or diseases—"

"You shouldn't hope to," Stacie muttered under her breath.

"Sorry?"

Stacie turned to her seriously and said, "I'm sure your intentions are noble and all, but don't you remember _why_ we're here? What Gail and the Professor told us? Chloe had a pretty useful power, too, and look what happened to her."

Aubrey looked surprised when she pieced together Stacie's insinuation. "The Professor wouldn't—he knows what he did was wrong. He confessed to everything."

"Yeah, he also basically admitted that he's an ambitious douchebag who would do anything for recognition."

" _Was_ ," corrected Aubrey. "He _was_ an ambitious douchebag. He said he isn't anymore."

"You're defending him?" Stacie half-laughed. "After what he did to Chloe?"

"But he and Gail explained everything," reasoned Aubrey, as if the admission was enough to absolve them. "Besides, he wasn't the only one involved in that experiment. I don't see you being afraid to expose your powers to her."

Stacie looked into the distance thoughtfully. "I'm not sure Gail is a hundred percent _with_ the Professor."

"And now you're making conspiracies," said Aubrey, throwing up her hands exasperatedly. "Why are you trying to pick a fight with him anyway?"

"I don't know, maybe because _three months_ ' worth of our memories turned out to be wrong?" Stacie said hotly. "Not to mention we completely forgot an entire person! Honestly, I feel like I can't trust anyone anymore, not even my own memories—much less the guy who claims to have caused all this crazy shit."

"You trust Gail," Aubrey pointed out. "She was part of the Project, too."

"Because I have good memories of her that I'm reasonable certain are true."

"Well, that's how I feel about the Professor," Aubrey said dismissively.

"Is it really?" challenged Stacie. "Because from where I'm standing, it seems like you _worship_ the guy."

Sensing an impending fight, Aubrey tried looking for a way out, but not before Stacie had the chance to accuse her.

"You didn't want to go on this mission because you're worried about Chloe. You accepted the mission because it was what the Professor wanted you to do."

"You're being ridiculous," snapped Aubrey. "I wanted to do the mission because it was the right thing to do!"

"According to the Professor!"

" _And_ Gail!" yelled Aubrey, catching Jesse and Cynthia Rose's attentions with her raised voice. She lowered it and hissed, "Stacie, what the hell? Why are you ragging on me about my decisions now when you've made the _exact_ same ones?"

"Because I'm worried that you're being brainwashed by the Professor! You eat up everything he tells you and you do whatever he asks even if it means risking your life," Stacie responded in an even tone. "Look, I know you've known him half your life but it's _not healthy,_ Aubrey. If you _did_ figure out how to take your healing to the next level, I'm worried that you'd give yourself up so easily to his next ambition, and end up just like Chloe."

"Is everything all right here?"

Aubrey and Stacie turned their heads to see Jesse limping over as quickly as he could.

"I thought it was Jesse that changed you," Stacie said quietly, speaking to Aubrey but still eyeing the approaching boyfriend. "But now I think something happened in those three months, something that we forgot, that changed you."

"What exactly are you accusing Aubrey of, Stacie?" Jesse asked darkly, panting slightly at the effort it took to get to them. "Because it seems to me like you're just looking for a reason to be angry at her to deflect from your jealousy."

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?" snarled Stacie. She stood up swiftly to be at level height with Jesse.

Aubrey rose to her feet, too, not wanting to be the only one left on the ground. "Jesse, _stop_ ," she warned him.

"Don't think I haven't noticed how you've been acting ever since Aubrey and I got together," Jesse said snidely. "She chose _me_ , okay—"

Both Aubrey and Stacie's mouths dropped open at his insinuation.

"Jesse," came Cynthia Rose's exasperated voice. She had also approached when she sensed Jesse's green monster about to surface. "Come on, we talked about this, man—"

"What?" Stacie rounded on Cynthia Rose. "So you've been talking about me behind my back, huh?"

"That's not what—"

Just before their fight came to a head, however, another one a couple of yards away had already broken out.

* * *

"… I told you, it's unnecessary… It's not the right time, okay?" said Gail, a phone clamped between her ear and shoulder. "We have enough of our own capital—hold on, I have another call. I'll call you back."

Gail gave the dress she had picked out to the sales lady with a nod and glanced at her phone. She frowned at the caller ID. "Hello, John," she greeted in a professional tone. "This had better be an emergency because we're not supposed to—"

"The Statute of Limitations ran out on that five years ago, Gail," John reminded her through the phone. "Are you busy?"

"I'm, uh, having a girl's day out."

There was a pause before John asked in an amused voice, "Shopping for Chloe again?"

Gail sighed. She couldn't blame John for being able to read her so easily, even over the phone; they _had_ been working together for several months now and that usually entailed getting to know each other's idiosyncrasies. Even though she could never fully trust him after what he did, Gail allowed herself to have a minimally acceptable working relationship with the man, hoping it would get her closer to understanding his psyche.

"I can't help it," she admitted with a shrug that he wouldn't see. "I guess I'm just excited to see her, and shopping distracts me from being worried about how the team is doing right now."

"Then, boy, do I have a distraction for you," John said in his usual over-enthusiastic tone. "Remember _Isla de San Juan_?" he said in a mildly offensive Spanish accented. "I don't think the increase in dark activity was a coincidence."

"What do you mean?"

"There's another spike. I think there's something, or someone, over there attracting the darkness. I was hoping you'd want to check it out with me since all the students are gone."

"Well, I guess I could—"

"Great! I'll see you in about an hour."

Without waiting for a response, John hung up. Gail shook her head and glanced back down at her phone. She had received a text message during the brief call from her publicist. The message read, " _The Herreras passed away last night. TIME and Forbes are asking for comments. Call me._ "

Gail frowned and felt a deep sorrow for the passing of her friends. But the sorrow was somewhat clouded by a feeling of unease, because the Herreras were a husband and wife famously known for uplifting from poverty the small Central American country of Isla de San Juan.

* * *

"Have you heard about the Herreras?" Gail asked the moment John settled in his seat on the jet.

"The what?"

"Rafael and Vina Herrera?"

"That rich couple from—" John sat up straighter and frowned. "From Saint John's Island?"

Gail nodded. "They died last night; murdered in their own home. I was wondering if this could be the cause of the spike in dark activity, because this can't just be a coincidence."

John looked thoughtful. "They must be really good people if it would cause a such a strong reaction from the entire country though."

"They are—well, _were_ ," Gail corrected herself sadly. "They spearheaded the sustainable development of their country's economy, halving the poverty rate in less than ten years. Hell, the two have a higher approval rating than their president."

"Are there any suspects in the murder?" asked John "Do you think the Heartless are behind it?"

Gail shook her head. "According to the reports I read on the way, the only person at home was their son. I don't think the Heartless are intelligent enough to come up with something as targeted as this, do you? It feels almost political."

"The son would be a viable suspect, then."

"I remember meeting him a few years ago," sighed Gail. "He was a regular boy, ambitious and privileged as he was. I don't think he'd be capable of murdering his own parents."

"Young people are more capable than we think," said John. "Trust me, I run a school filled with them. You never know what goes on in their heads…"

* * *

The boulder Beca was previously leaning on was smashed to pieces from the force of Luke's body crashing into it. She had flown straight into the air to dodge the attack, bombarding him with successive air swipes as she ascended. Luke, in his fully metallized body, crossed his arms in front of him to deflect the air.

Aubrey, Cynthia Rose, Jesse, and Stacie ran to their two teammates just as Beca, who was still furiously sending air swipes Luke's way nonstop, yelled, "Maybe I could beat your head out of your ass so we finally get a leader who gives a shit!"

Luke took cover behind another boulder and waited for a fatigued Beca to get back on the ground. When she did, he charged toward her again. "What would you know about being a leader?" he yelled back. "You have no regard for your team and you can't take responsibility for your reckless decisions!"

Luke angrily pushed off every air swipe that was sent his way and growled whenever Beca would just jump back to avoid him. Frustrated, he aimed his fist at her chest, formed it into a sharp end, and extended it as far as he could.

Beca's eyes widened as she witnessed her miscalculation; the metal was going farther than she had ever seen it stretched before—

"Luke! Beca!" Aubrey screeched when the sharp end of Luke's arm was mere inches from Beca.

The unfamiliar feeling of his arm being ripped off startled Luke. He turned to the other four members of their team—each looking as dumbfounded as the other—and saw Jesse with his palms out facing him. The calm façade that had already been broken when Beca wouldn't stop taunting him only crumbled further.

Luke glared murderously at Jesse and warned him, in a dead serious tone, "You don't want to be doing that, Jesse."

"What the hell are you two doing?" cried Aubrey, taking the chance to begin an open dialogue. "This isn't the time to be fighting!"

"JESSE, LET ME GO!" roared Luke, the vein in his neck bulging. They had never seen Luke this furious, and it scared Jesse enough to gulp and sweat.

"Let him go. His prissy ass needs this fight," Beca said from a safer distance. Rather than cause her concern, seeing that Luke was serious enough to actually hurt her only made her stubbornly angrier.

"Stop taunting him, Beca!" Stacie yelled angrily, in disbelief at what was going on in front of her eyes.

When Jesse still hadn't released him, Luke made the smart decision to return his body to its fleshy form and continue the charge, only this time he was headed straight for Jesse instead of Beca. As the rest watched in surprise, Jesse backed away hurriedly and brought up walls of rock to deter Luke but the Brit only smashed his way through them, altering his body between metal and flesh.

" _Stop!_ " Aubrey shrieked when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Beca swoop in to attack Luke for attacking her best friend.

A flash of a smoke bomb later, Stacie had her long arms wrapped multiple times around Beca, restraining her, and Aubrey was standing between Luke and Jesse with both arms keeping them from each other. Every single one of them was panting heavily.

Aubrey stared Luke straight in the eye but saw no sign of the man she grew up with.

* * *

 **Response to reviews:**

 **xcombixgirlx** (Oct. 3) - Haha, Chloe should know that anger never solves the problem (as Inside Out clearly taught us), although the guys inside the Realm seem to have forgotten that, too. Oh, boy, I guess I should try disappointing you soon 'cause that's a lot of pressure after 11 chapters haha. I hope you don't hate Jesse even more after this chapter, but there's a reason for everything.

 **Maggie** (Oct. 3) - Thank you, Maggie! I hope you have a great day, too. :)

* * *

 **A/N:** Just dropping by to say thanks to all you readers for your continued interest! :) And also to make sort of an apology. Usually, I don't like including OC's unless they're important in the long run (like Jack or Charlene) but I had to include a fictional couple in a fictional country to get to the climax of season 2. Rest assured, the Herreras will only hang around until the next chapter.


	13. Island in the Spotlight

**A/N:** Hello, again! Thanks for continuing to read this story but first, just a quick note on the #Femslash2015 contest. If it's important to you that Anna Kendrick and Brittany Snow potentially do an interview about Bechloe, then by all means please check out the review by 'FLEURHERMIONE' for details—or Google it, whatever floats your boat. Otherwise, you may continue on reading. Thanks and enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter Thirteen: Island in the Spotlight**

"What the hell is wrong with you two?" shouted Cynthia Rose. "Use your _words_ , not your fists, dammit!"

"Luke is being a total asswipe and I'm getting fucking tired of picking up his slack!" spat Beca, as she struggled to free herself from Stacie's grip. "Are those enough words for you?"

"Easy there, Beca." Stacie winced when the smaller brunette's elbow dug into a particularly sensitive spot.

Everyone waited anxiously for Luke to say something, but he was no longer responding to Beca's taunts; his breaths had steadied and he was staring past all of them, at the space far in the distance. Aubrey, his friend of almost ten years, tried catching his eye but he avoided them in shame.

"We need to go," he croaked after a pause, his voice hoarse from the uncharacteristic yelling he did earlier.

"No," said Aubrey firmly. "We need to talk about what happened before we go any further—"

"I don't mean going further. We need to leave the Realm of Darkness."

"What?"

"You're giving up?" scoffed Beca. "Wow, I knew you were a wuss, but I didn't think—"

"I'm not giving up," interjected Luke, ignoring the bait. "On the contrary, I'm doing what you want; I'm choosing to protect you all from this hell of a place."

Beca frowned in spite of herself. "What are you talking about? We've been here for four days, we know the danger—"

"I don't think we're completely safe from the darkness," Luke announced solemnly, still not making eye contact with anyone. "Both inside the Realm _and_ inside our hearts. Think about it... I can feel myself growing more miserable the longer we stay here. Can't you?"

Luke finally lifted his head, looked at each of them one by one, and got his answer.

Over the past few days, but more so in the last twenty-four hours, they _had_ begun noticing that they were getting more hot-tempered and impatient as a team. But they chalked it up to the obvious stress of going through seemingly endless Heartless encounters.

They each assumed that the reason they were liking each other a _lot_ less was that simply being with each other constantly in the Realm, at closer proximity than they were used to in the real world, made them quite tired of each other.

But even with that hypothesis, they couldn't deny that they also began to find bits of each other's personalities _unreasonably_ irritating all of a sudden. For instance, Aubrey's controlling obsession with organization, which they normally tolerated at Barden and thought of as an adorable quirk, now felt like borderline Nazism coming from the blonde.

And while everyone found Beca generally agreeable, they knew that her disregard for rules and order could be a pain in the ass. They didn't, however, expect that once inside the Realm her flaw would manifest into an utter disregard for everyone being turned into an icicle every time she "forgot" that everyone besides her felt the cold. It went from a mildly annoying character trait to evidence of borderline sociopathic behavior. For someone who claimed to be willing to die for any of her teammates, it seemed to the rest of the Alpha team that Beca found it way too easy to disregard their wellbeing when they weren't in immediate danger.

And once it started becoming obvious, they didn't even want to _touch_ Jesse's problem. He had become so unbearably possessive over Aubrey ever since their first night in the Realm that nobody wanted to talk to him anymore to avoid actually hitting him. Though he had apologized for the incident, he didn't actually change his outward passive-aggressive behavior of showering his girlfriend with attention and close physical contact. But it wasn't a behavior they were only seeing with clearer eyes; Jesse had _never_ been that irritating outside the Realm.

Not even Stacie and Cynthia Rose were exempt from being seen through shit-colored glasses.

Never had it been more apparent to the team that Stacie had a knack for saying or doing whatever she wanted—like downright accusing Aubrey of not being able to think for herself—just because she thought she could get away with it. It was entertaining to watch people try and fail to stop her back in the real world, but they had no patience for it inside the Realm. Bold and outspoken as she was, Stacie had no right to throw out incendiary comments.

And it was no longer a wonder to them how Cynthia Rose had gotten to be the master gambler that she was, being as ambiguous as a homonym when choosing sides on an issue. It seemed to them that she always had something to say but never picked a definite side on things. Of course, under normal circumstances they would think of this as being rationally objective, but with everyone's secretly pissed at everyone else, Cynthia Rose couldn't be trusted to be on your side.

All these pent up frustrations they had been secretly harboring came rushing to the front of their minds at Luke's simple question about whether they felt something dark growing within them. And along with that wave of unbridled resentment came a bitter feeling that they didn't dare admit to themselves amidst the exhaustion of the past few days.

The feeling that the mission wasn't worth it anymore.

* * *

A depressing silence followed Luke's question, but it was only followed by an even more upsetting discovery.

"I haven't even thought about Chloe since…" Luke shook his head and sighed, unable to finish his sentence. "And to think, we've only been here for four days. It already feels like forever and we've covered barely a third of the distance."

"But now that we know we feel this way we can push it down," Aubrey suggested hopefully, her determination to never give up the mission outweighing what she knew was probably the better decision. "Whenever we feel stressed out or angry, we can just remind each other that it's the darkness, not us."

"Aubrey, we have maybe sixty miles left. Even if we manage to stick to the schedule, that's still a week more of _this_ ," Luke waved his hand over their combative positions, which hadn't changed since the dust cleared. "I'm not risking it getting even more out of hand when it will already be too late to go back."

"But we can handle—"

"I wanted to _hurt_ her, Bree."

Aubrey shut her mouth and Beca's body slackened under Stacie's grip. With the adrenaline gone, it only now sunk in how grave it must have been if Luke had really wanted to pierce her with his metal arm.

"And Jesse, too," added Luke, finally meeting Aubrey's eyes with his guilt-filled ones. "I really wanted to hurt them, and I almost did. Just a simple argument made me lose control. And you _know_ me, Aubrey; you know that under normal circumstances I would never have done that. The influence of being in this Realm _is_ strong; it feeds on our exhaustion and fuels our impatience. These pulses of light," he waved at the air around them, "they're only manufactured—useless against the pure darkness. I can't let the team be haunted by the possibility of losing themselves like I almost did."

They all remained quiet for a minute, evaluating the situation. They had never once even considered the option of _deliberately_ failing the mission because, as Gail had told them, they weren't to come back without Chloe. Of course, she meant for it to be taken with a grain of salt and they did, but was _this_ a good enough reason to back out?

Aubrey and Luke's eyes were still locked on to each other. In all her life, she knew Luke was not the type to give her any bullshit; he knew how much responsibility meant to Aubrey, 'brainwashed' or not and so he knew very well what he was asking her to do.

"Okay," she said softly, reaching out and putting a comforting hand on Luke's forearm. Then she turned to address everyone. "It's only a few hours from the Corridor to the fourth checkpoint. After that, the first three charges ought to have expired by now so there might be some fighting left for us to do. But it's not a big deal, all right, guys? Like Luke said... we need to rest, not just our bodies, but our hearts, too. We know now that we can't do this in one go so we'll… we'll just have to figure something out with the Professor and Gail when we get back."

The others pretended not to look surprised at Aubrey's willingness to quit and simply nodded. Stacie fully uncoiled her arms around Beca and shuffled off to help Aubrey and Cynthia Rose pack up the few things they had laid out to set up camp after their most recent Heartless encounter. A very subdued Jesse followed them back to help.

Luke hung back and signaled to Beca that he wanted to talk to her. Beca didn't hesitate to oblige.

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely when they were left alone. "I hope you know that I would never—in my right mind—hurt you intentionally. And I'm sorry I put pressure on you to lead the team without even asking if you wanted to. And I'm sorry for accusing you of being reckless when you wanted to take on the mission, I should have known that you would do it because you were loyal to your friend."

Beca shook her head. "Stop apologizing. I was feeling really shitty, too, but I didn't think to connect it to the darkness in this place. And I didn't mean what I said about you being a bad leader."

She took a deep breath and swallowed her awkwardness. "I _really_ look up to you, Luke," she mumbled. She had always been unwilling to admit even a slight dependency on people, but if anyone had earned it, it would be the guy standing in front of her. "Yes, I was upset that you threw everything on my shoulders, but it's mostly because I still _want_ you to tell me what to do. You are the perfect guy to head this team—everything feels safe and _right_ when it's coming from you, and I don't think I have that part of leadership down yet. And…" she lowered her head in shame. "To be honest, I haven't been thinking about Chloe lately either. So, I don't know, you might not be completely off base when you said that I was 'recklessly eager' when I... when—"

"Hey, we can talk about this when we get back, all right?" Luke stopped her with a small smile. "Everything just feels too heavy right now, doesn't it?"

Beca nodded. The resolve she had found in herself the night of the Christmas dinner was starting to unravel; Chloe may have been a special person to them, once upon a memory, but Beca was starting to realize that maybe there was more to the mission than the feeling of having a purpose. She—they needed something more.

Together the two reconciled friends walked back to the speeders, faced the vehicles in the opposite direction, and made their way back home.

* * *

"Thank you for your hospitality, Sid," said John, grasping the young man's hand with his. "And I'm _so_ sorry for your loss."

The young man bowed and replied in an accented English, "Thank you, Mr. Smith and Mrs. McKadden. Speaking to friends of my parents was quite enjoyable. It gives me good memories to keep in light of the investigation."

"I hope everything clears up soon," Gail offered sympathetically. She and John had ended up spending two nights in Isla de San Juan, being lavishly accommodated by Gail's deceased friends' son, Isidro Herrera. Aside from taking part in the national mourning ceremonies, they had also intended to do a bit of investigating themselves to see if the spike in dark activity could be attributed to the death and not something more sinister.

But they didn't get far, since the dashing young man had explained that he simply found his parents dead in their bedrooms one morning. Despite not having evidence connecting him to the crime, however, the local police could not drop Sid as the prime suspect in the case solely by the fact that there were no other plausible suspects. That kept Gail and John stumped with regard to their own investigation.

"I hope so, too. Have a safe flight back to America."

Gail and John were taken with a police escort to the national airport, where the AMG jet was given permission to park. Obviously, they avoided discussing the investigation inside the service car and instead acted like tourists, asking the driver about every building or monument that they passed. The Herrera tower—the tallest structure, protruding into the city's skyline—was one building that Gail didn't remember seeing the last time she had visited, and it was a testament to how different things were. The Herreras had definitely helped shaped the small island country, and it was no surprise how much the citizens mourned for their deaths. Yet something still didn't feel right.

"So what do you think?" she asked John an hour later when they were safely in the air en route to Atlanta. "Do you think Sid is completely innocent?"

"Oh, I don't believe anyone is _completely_ innocent," said John, shifting in his seat to fish his phone out of his pocket. "He's definitely hiding _something_ , but whether or not it implicates him, I do not know."

"I agree. In any case, we should expect higher levels of dark activity in the days to come. When the students come back, we should send a team as soon as possible."

"I don't think we'll have to wait that long," John said slowly, frowning down at his phone. "I haven't been able to check my inbox since we arrived but I got an e-mail from Charlene yesterday. Apparently they're back."

Gail perked up excitedly.

"—without Chloe."

Her face fell. "Is everything all right?" she asked worriedly. "Are they hurt?"

John shook his head. "Charlene started debriefing this morning," he said, reading from his e-mail. "They discovered that… prolonged exposure to the darkness in the Realm was affecting the darkness in their own hearts." He lifted his head to look at Gail. "Well, it makes sense that we overlooked that, since drones don't _have_ hearts. They had to leave the Realm to recover."

"Oh..." Gail bit her lip worriedly.

John observed her anxiously tapping her fingers against the armrest of her chair while trying not to look too heartbroken. He sighed, leaning back in his own chair, and closed his eyes.

* * *

When the team exited the Realm of Darkness through the Corridor Beca had created in one of the basement levels of the mansion, the general air was a mixture of shame, exhaustion, and relief. Charlene had already been waiting for them, which wasn't a surprise since she always seemed to know what was going on. She directed them immediately and without judgment to their rooms where a warm bed, their favorite drink and comfort food, and fresh clothes were waiting for them after they spent as long as they wished in a relaxing hot bath.

The days they spent inside the Realm of Darkness had really taken their toll, and most of the Alpha team had tears of joy in their eyes upon hearing Charlene's words. They gave her their silent thanks on their way upstairs—all except Luke and Beca. Luke stayed behind in Aubrey's stead to brief Charlene on what had happened, while Beca stayed as well to make sure that Luke didn't take all the blame for it.

But Charlene surprised them both by putting up a hand. "It's okay, you don't have to explain. The Professor and Gail are on their own mission right now and will be back in two days. You can spend that time resting."

Luke visibly relaxed and thanked her. Beca did the same and started to follow him out of the room, but a hand curling around her wrist stopped her. She turned and saw Charlene looking at her concernedly. "Just tell me—yes or no," the Professor's assistant said softly. "Is everything okay?"

Beca felt that it wasn't a question she could answer. What happened to them inside the Realm was more complicated than 'okay' and 'not okay.' Not to mention that she felt weird that Charlene had spoken to her personally. Usually she went to Aubrey or Luke to request information on the missions. Charlene must have sensed that Beca had something to do with it.

"No," said Beca, because, in this case, it was the easier answer.

* * *

The team slept an average of twelve hours that night, Aubrey being the obvious outlier and getting precisely seven and a half. They were also given the option of a late breakfast—really, _any_ meal at all—in bed, and were allowed to spend the rest of the new day doing low-stress activities, never having to leave the room if they didn't want to. And with the mansion still devoid of Bumper and his friends, the atmosphere was calmer than a Buddhist monastery atop a mountain in the Himalayas.

In other words, they were pampered for an entire day. Every indulgence, however, came with a reminder that they would need to answer for it soon. And so, the next day, while waiting for the Professor and Gail to return that afternoon, Charlene resumed her job and asked the students for an individual debriefing session in the Professor's office.

Beca smiled lightly at Stacie as she passed her on the way into the office. In the corner of the room, Charlene had set up a small, comfortable sofa and an armchair. It looked almost comically like a psychiatrist's office. Beca resisted rolling her eyes as she made her way toward the couch.

"Hi, Beca," the raven-haired woman greeted dryly, not even looking up from the clipboard she was scribbling on. "I'm just going to ask a few questions to get the conversation going, but I'd like you to feel free to discuss anything you want to."

Beca nodded. "Okay."

"Okay. Can you tell me, in your own words, what led to your early return from the Realm of Darkness?"

Beca took a deep breath. "It started slowly, but we didn't realize it until we cracked."

"What started slowly?"

"The depression, I guess? It's the closest thing I can compare it to," shrugged Beca. "It's kind of like, you don't see it coming until you already have it. In our case—"

"In your case."

"In my case," corrected Beca with a confused frown. "I didn't realize that, well, I was getting pissed more easily. It wasn't, like, your regular PMS-ing or whatever, it was just plain, unadulterated anger. And it just spiraled. I was getting really tired because of the fighting and all, and I started that thinking everyone else was being unfair... well, to be more accurate, I was thinking that they were never as tired as I was, and they took for granted that I could fly."

"Was Luke someone who took you for granted?"

"Yeah," Beca said hesitantly. "Lately he's been talking a lot about me leading the team but I didn't think it would happen so soon and in the middle of _this_ mission. And that, too, added to my stress. So after the last checkpoint, before we left, I confronted him about it."

"Was that all you told him?"

Beca looked up. Of course Luke would have told her the whole story as well. "I also insulted him. A lot," she confessed. "I told him he was being too laid back—and it's true!" she added indignantly. "Even during training. It's like he's not doing anything to be better anymore—which is ironic, since he's in charge of developing our powers."

"Why does that bother you so much?"

"Because I look up to Luke, and I've never had someone to look up to before, not since…" Beca squirmed in her seat. She wasn't comfortable with Charlene enough to be talking to her so candidly, but she strived to think of it as simply giving a mission report. "I used to _not care_ about anything, but when I came to Barden it was Luke who believed in me and made sure that my powers got better. He gave me something to care about."

Charlene lowered her gaze sadly. "I'm sorry."

Beca waved a hand to brush it off. "It's my problem. It's not that I think I chose the wrong role model… Maybe I've just reached a point where I have to take my own path."

"Have you spoken to Luke since you came back?"

Beca shook her head. "I crashed on my bed until we had to do this," she gestured between the two of them. "I'll talk to him later though. Maybe."

"You should," nodded Charlene. "Now, about the mission…"

"I'm sorry we couldn't go through it the whole way," Beca said once, "but I'm not sorry that it happened, because who knows how much worse it could've gotten the longer we stayed there, right?"

"I'm sure the Professor and Gail would understand. Your safety is still their priority."

"I guess…" muttered Beca. "But still, I got the sense that Gail was looking forward to seeing Chloe again." She looked up at Charlene to confirm her intuition that Gail hadn't been pleased to hear that they returned without Chloe.

"They both responded appropriately," Charlene said simply. "But, again, it is not worth losing you to the darkness. We will all work together to come up with a plan, don't worry."

Beca nodded again. Charlene looked down at her clipboard quickly before leaning forward. "But I do want to ask—since everyone else has mentioned it—were you… was the mission's objective _clear_ in your mind, or was it muddled by the darkness, too?"

"I wasn't focused on Chloe, if that's what you're asking," sighed Beca. "Early on, we kept telling ourselves— _one step at a time_ , we'll get there soon. But we kept focusing on that _next_ step, and the one after that, and the one after _that_ , until we lost sight of why we were there in the first place."

Charlene studied Beca's face carefully. "It might be helpful," she said, "to keep Chloe in mind at all times. Remembering her will—"

"But that's the thing, isn't it?" Beca said eagerly, shifting to sit cross-legged on the couch. " _None_ of us remembers her. I mean, it would be great if we had that emotional connection going on but," she shook her head in disbelief, "we don't even know what she freaking _looks_ like. We don't know what her voice sounds like, or what clothes she was wearing that day. It's not _easy_ to use Chloe as a motivator, especially when you're in that place."

"Did you ever think that she's not worth rescuing?"

"That's not fair," Beca protested defensively. "She's our friend. We would save her even if it means going through all that."

"But, as you pointed out, you have no memory of her. All you know about Chloe Beale is what the Professor and Gail have told you about Chloe Beale," Charlene said calmly. "If, hypothetically, you could argue that they had lied to you, would you still think it's up to you to bring her back? What does she mean to you anyway?"

"Is this some kind of test?" Beca asked irritably. "Are you trying to see if we're still going to do the mission after our little breakdown?"

"Answer my question, Beca."

Beca's skin prickled at being told what to do, and, as it normally did whenever she was being told what to do, her adolescent angst kicked in. "I wouldn't think it was up to _us_ but I'd do it anyway!" she said, planting her feet back on the carpeted floor and leaning forward in her seat. "She's still someone who needs our help and since I've got the damn Keyblade, it's _my_ fucking responsibility. So, no, ' _I won't give up'_ —is that what you wanted to hear?"

Charlene didn't answer, but simply stared at Beca with what the younger girl imagined was disappointment. She finished writing on her clipboard and announced in a duller tone, "The Professor and Gail are arriving any minute now. They will want to meet all of you at once."

* * *

"We're really sorry," was the first thing out of Aubrey's mouth when they had all gathered back in the antechamber. "But it was necessary—"

"You don't have to explain, Aubrey," Gail cut in kindly. "I think it was a wise decision to head back when you had the chance, instead of pushing yourselves too far."

"But obviously, we have to discuss our next steps," said the Professor. "How soon—or rather," he paused, "do you still wish to continue the mission?"

The students simultaneously voiced their assurances.

"We just needed some time to detox from the darkness," said Cynthia Rose. "And I have thought about something we could do. Since we still have over sixty miles to go, could AMG come up with some sort of protection that we could wear to go all the way?"

"All the way to the end of the Realm," Aubrey added quickly, throwing Cynthia Rose a look to chastise her for her wording.

"That sounds reasonable," nodded the Professor, having already made that same conclusion on the plane. "What do you think, Gail?"

Gail made an effort to hide her disappointment and nodded as well. "I'll get my team at AMG to work on that right away."

"Good. In the meantime," the Professor pointed at the students. "I suggest you all take plenty of rest and go through more endurance training. Maybe do a couple of team building activities _other_ than training simulations—go on a retreat or something."

The students exchanged awkward looks and just shrugged their assent. They hadn't actually spoken a word to each other since they left the Realm, so some quality time might just be what they needed.

* * *

After the students left the antechamber, looking significantly more relieved for not being made to feel worse about failing the mission, John turned to Gail. "Look, I know you're upset that it will take longer to get Chloe back, but I can't assure you—and neither can they—that they will be back in there anytime soon," he said.

Gail nodded sadly. "I understand, John, but let's keep in mind that the charges have less than three weeks left. And this new protective armor thing will take up even more resources; my resources are stretched thin."

John's shoulders sagged, realizing the same thing.

"I'm just worried, John," continued Gail. "We don't know even what that world in between is even like. What if… what if Chloe's not there anymore? What if we are losing her every single day that we let pass?" She rubbed a hand over her face wearily. "I know it's a lot to ask from them, but I'm worried that they don't understand that we _have_ to assume a tight schedule."

"Yet you refuse to tell Beca about her relationship with Chloe?"

"Actually," piped up Charlene, "during our debriefing, Beca showed a strong desire to accomplish the mission, regardless of having an emotional connection with Chloe. She thinks it's her responsibility because she holds the Keyblade."

Gail waved a hand. "Well, there you go. We don't need to fuel their motivation, we just need to find a way to keep it solid as they go through the darkness." She sighed and glanced at her watch. "Look, I have to go; I missed too much work as it is. I'll keep you updated on progress at AMG."

"And I'll do the same as regards the students," nodded John. "Have a safe trip back to New York."

Gail declined Charlene's offer to escort her to the jet, so John was left alone in his office with his assistant.

John chewed the inside of his cheek thoughtfully before turning to Charlene. "I don't know why she's so stubborn," he clucked. "Telling Beca _would_ keep her motivation solid, wouldn't it?"

Charlene merely shrugged, her mind on another matter entirely.

"Well, what do we do now? Just wait?" John asked her semi-rhetorically.

"It might be risky but," Charlene started slowly, "do you still have your contact at the agency?"

John frowned at her question. "Yes, but that seems counter-intuitive to what we want, doesn't it?"

The assistant hesitated before saying, "We don't have to let them _know_ what we want."

John raised his eyebrows, intrigued. "What do you have in mind?"

* * *

The six students did end up spending more casual time together over the next few days. Since they were confident in their fighting ability, they took the Professor's advice and worked on their endurance and stamina instead. By the end of Spring Break, they were back in top condition and theoretically could have reentered the Realm.

Unfortunately, the end of Spring Break also meant once again splitting their focus with school. But what made things worse was not the recurrence of classes and homework, but the sudden and rapidly growing unrest in the capital city of Saint John's Island. Just one day after the Professor and Gail's visit, they got word that Heartless began swarming the capital city _again_. If they hadn't been tracking the darkness levels all over the world, they wouldn't have even known about the situation because, to their surprise and great relief, there was no sign of the incident in the global media.

The Professor immediately took all the available students with him to the island to diffuse the situation, while Gail made provisions to conduct a citywide memory modification for the second time. The situation was much worse than their previous visit. They had been able to arrive at the site quickly then, whereas they were a few hours late to the party this time.

Once she was at the ground zero, Beca was shocked to see that some of the Heartless scouring the streets were the human-like ones they fought just before leaving the Realm.

"Sir, these Heartless are way stronger than anything we've ever encountered in the real world," Beca informed the Professor through the communication device in her ear. She refrained from mentioning that they _had_ encountered them inside the Realm, since the Beta team was not aware of their secret missions.

"We expected another spike in the darkness since the Herrera murders," said the Professor. "But we didn't expect it to be _this_ bad."

On her left, Beca saw Bumper shoot his tongue out to whip a Heartless, only to have it grasped between the Heartless' clawed fingers. Bumper yelped in pain.

"They're also smarter," commented Beca, closing in to attack the Heartless and help Bumper. She sent a powerful air swipe at the Heartless, which caused it to release Bumper's tongue. She then trapped the Heartless in a ball of air, keeping it still while Bumper gargled up a vile, acidic spit shot to take it down.

"Beca, where are you?" came Aubrey's voice through the channel, as Bumper gave Beca a fist bump in a rare act of camaraderie before leaving to fight more Heartless.

Beca looked around wildly. "Uh, I don't know exactly but I'm near some fountain."

"Can you get into the air?"

Beca did as instructed. "Okay, I'm up. Where are you?"

"Can you see the H-tower? It's the blue building… the one on the mission brief..." There was silence on the other end while Beca continued to scan the building. "It's the _tallest_ one, Beca—!"

"Yeah, yeah, I see it," Beca said hurriedly. She honestly hadn't even glanced at the mission brief but at least there was only one tall, blue building in the skyline. But at the moment there was something odd about it… It looked like—

"The Corridor of Darkness is on the top floor of that building!"

Every mission's first priority was always the safety of civilians, so, considering the sheer amount of Heartless rampant in the city, Beca hadn't bothered locating the rip until now.

"It also houses the broadcast tower with the strongest signal, so listen up," said Aubrey; "Gail will hand you the device to upload the modifier, so after you close the rip, do you think you could do the honors? We'll take care of things down here."

"Sounds like a plan. I'm on my way to Gail."

After Beca fetched the device, she flew straight toward the mass of dark energy that had invaded an entire floor of the building. She hovered against the face of the tower to observe the Corridor for a few seconds; it was by far the largest rip she had ever seen, so she wondered whether it would take more effort to close. Another unusual thing she had noticed was that the rip was free of Heartless. Normally, the Heartless still inside the Realm of Darkness were eager to swarm out, but it seemed to Beca that the dark portal had exhausted its supply of Heartless when it unleashed itself on the city.

Beca briefly looked back down to where her classmates were either fighting off groups of Heartless or assisting in putting out fires and rescuing people trapped under debris. She then aimed her Keyblade at a random point in the dark mass, hoping that the Keyblade would know what to do. A thin stream of pure light emerged from its tip and work began on sealing the rip.

Beca sighed in relief. She held her grip firmly and waited as the Corridor shrank minimally and gradually.

"Oye!"

Beca craned her neck toward the _click-clacking_ sound of shoes on a marble floor. A young man with dark hair and dark eyes approached Beca from further in the building, stopping just before the shattered windows. His eyes moved from the Keyblade, to the end of the stream of light, and then onto Beca's face. "It's you!" he exclaimed in mild surprise.

Beca frowned and cocked her head at him curiously, wondering how the man could possibly recognize her. Ignoring this impossibility in favor of common sense, she called out to him, "Don't worry, it's all going to be okay! Just evacuate the building—!"

"So, that sword is for closing," the young man called back. "You used it before."

Beca was startled. Now convinced that she must have met this man before, she took a moment to register his appearance and his voice and, soon enough, she remembered the man in the limo she had encountered during their last mission on the island. " _Oh!_ You were that guy in the limo."

 _Figures a rich guy would be working in a building like this,_ she thought.

"You also fight those monsters with the sword, yes?" The man gestured lazily down at the streets, thousands of feet below him.

"Uh, yeah," said Beca, eyeing the darkness swirling menacingly around the man's ankles. "Just doing our jobs. But don't worry, you won't remem—"

She froze. "Wait a second," she said slowly. "You... you remember me?"

The man nodded and folded his arms behind his back before walking confidently toward the spot in the darkness to which Beca's Keyblade connected. "Yes, I remember. I wondered why the news was reporting animals escaping from the zoo and completely ignoring the dark monsters."

Beca didn't say anything. She didn't know _what_ to say. Had this this man had been able to resist the memory modifications, or was his encounter with Beca too unforgettable that he was able to see past the fake news. Beca would have a lot of explaining to do if it were the latter. It was a miracle he hadn't said or done anything since the last time they were there.

" _I_ didn't ignore the monsters," the man continued proudly, sounding like a little boy showing off his new bike to his friends. "I wanted to tame them." He snapped his fingers and Beca heard a low rumbling noise. She frowned and glanced down quickly to see _all_ the Heartless that had been fighting in the city now flying straight toward her. The sheer number of them formed what looked like a giant cloud of darkness, ready to eat her up.

"Oh, shit."

* * *

"The Heartless have all gone to Beca!" Jesse yelled in a panic. "They must have sensed her closing the Corridor—We have to help her!"

It took the rest of the Barden students almost ten minutes of sprinting to get to the bottom of the tower and by that time, Beca was physically exhausted from fending off upward of a thousand Heartless while in mid-air. Unsurprisingly, but nonetheless horrifying, the next they saw of her was her pale, unconscious body plummeting toward the ground.

"Jesse, get me up there!" Stacie commanded, and at once the ground beneath her feet rose up in a column, sending her toward Beca as fast as Jesse could manage.

When she was close enough, Stacie stretched and expanded herself to catch Beca and cradle her gently on her flattened torso. The Heartless were still in hot pursuit, so as Stacie was lowered back to the ground, Cynthia Rose began fending off the oncoming wave of Heartless. Her ice and poison bombs were never more useful than they were right now; of the swarm of Heartless descending upon them, small patches would simply freeze and shatter upon hitting the ground, while the others slowly dissipated after the poison overwhelmed them.

Once on the ground, Stacie immediately rushed Beca to cover, and took Aubrey with her. In the safety of a nearby building, the blonde placed her fingertips gently against Beca's pulse point started to carefully restore the brunette's energy. Luckily, Beca hadn't incurred anything more than shallow cuts, and it wasn't long before she returned to a conscious state.

"That guy—he can control the Heartless," was the first thing out of her dry mouth.

Aubrey and Stacie exchanged surprised looks while helping Beca sit up. "What guy?"

"I saw him the first time we were here," said Beca, rubbing the spot on her neck where Aubrey had electrified her. "He was in a limo when I first met him and he probably works at that tower."

"The Herrera tower," muttered Stacie, recalling the mission briefing, "it's the headquarters of a family-run business, isn't it?"

"The man you met could have been the son!" exclaimed Aubrey. "The briefing mentioned a recent murder investigation, and the Professor suspected the son had something to do with it." She looked at Beca. "You don't suppose he _controlled_ the Heartless and had his parents killed? But how is it possible—?"

"I don't know how it's possible, but I don't think we have time to come up with theories right now."

Just then, they all heard Gail's voice in their ears. "Beca's right. Sid seems to be controlling the Heartless. Beca, were you able to seal the rip?"

"No," Beca answered bitterly. "The Heartless overpowered me before I got it fully closed."

"You shouldn't feel bad about that, there were over a thousand Heartless on you at once!" said Stacie. "We _all_ need to be up at the tower to cover Beca while she closes the Corridor."

"What about Sid?" Aubrey asked. "Would the Heartless back off if we got rid of him?"

"I don't think so," said Gail. "But you just worry about the rip—the Professor and I will deal with Sid."

* * *

John raised his eyebrow. "And how do you suggest we powerless forty-somethings ' _deal with_ ' a young man who can control Heartless?"

"We talk to him," answered Gail simply, instructing the driver to head for the Herrera tower.

With his retort silenced by the notification alert on his phone, John simply shrugged. He looked down at his phone and paled as he received more bad news. "Charlene just sent me this," he said quietly, passing his phone to Gail.

It was a collage of social media posts all mentioning and depicting the crisis going on at Isla de San Juan. Along with the picture attachment was a link to a live-updating news website that was promising to send a camera crew down to the city.

"Fuck!" she cursed. "I have no influence in the media, do you? We should stop them before they come all at once."

John shook his head. "We just have to modify their memories immediately and hope for the best."

Gail ran a hand through her hair just as the jet landed on the roof of the tower. She grabbed a spare modifier and stuffed it into her bag. "Let's try to convince Sid to stop this himself. It's for his own good, too," she suggested as they hurried out the door and onto the roof. With the Heartless back on the ground, they met no resistance as they navigated to the stairwell. "He won't want the media looking into this Heartless situation either."

They rushed down the steps and onto the topmost floor, whose floor-to-ceiling glass windows were shattered by the Corridors of Darkness seeping out. They turned and saw Isidro Herrera standing at the edge of the building floor, staring down at the fight happening on his command.

"Sid!"

The young man turned around. "You are working with the small girl with the sword that fights my monsters, isn't that right?"

"Oh, she doesn't like being called 'small.'"

"Your monsters?" Gail cut into John's humorous remark. Her curiosity regarding Sid's connection only grew; if he didn't know what they were properly called, did he truly understand what they were?

"It was my destiny to control them," nodded Sid. "They first appeared in my city a few months ago. But you already know that, I think."

Gail exchanged concerned looks with John. She thought she had erased everyone's memories that day.

"I was in my car when I saw the monster kill a woman on the street. It fascinated me," Sid continued airily, "to see a creature take the life of another… just because it wants to and just because it can."

"Sid, you need to stop this—the international media will be arriving soon, and the world _cannot_ know about—about your monsters!" insisted Gail, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She was almost certain that this young man was crazy. Sid must have been severely traumatized by witnessing the death of a Heartless the last time they appeared in the city that her memory modifications didn't work on him.

And worse, he believed he could _control_ the Heartless.

"My parents were great people, but too slow," said Sid, beginning to pace across the floor. "Too slow," he repeated, "to see what the next step was—world domination."

 _Yup. He's nuts._

"Do you know what makes America great?"

"Cheeseburgers," John nodded confidently, and Gail threw him a ' _why aren't you taking this seriously?_ ' look.

Sid scowled slightly. "No. America is great because you Americans take what you want, and you don't apologize. Power. Strength. _That_ is what made America the greatest, richest country in the world."

Being a businesswoman herself, Gail couldn't help get a dig in after hearing the young man's blatant misunderstanding of the economic history of her own country. "I would argue that _innovation_ made America the country it is today, but do go on," she said dryly.

Through the (lack of a) window, Gail and John suddenly saw a black figure shoot upward against the grey-blue sky. Sid had been too busy with his monologue to see it, but they both knew that it was a Heartless. Another dark figure shot past the windows, followed by a few more.

The team was fighting back and making their way back to the Corridor to seal it. That gave them hope, and it also gave them an idea.

"So you want your country to become the next United States of America?" asked John, adding extra condescension to his tone. "Do you have any idea how the world works, young man? Do you not understand basic economics—?"

"I know what I am talking about!" roared Sid. "My parents were naïve fools. I went to the best schools— _your_ schools! I lived my life learning from them, yet they would have me start at the lowest position in the company to learn _discipline,_ " he spat the word with much vitriol. "Well, as you say in America, the joke is on them because I learned from school, too." He smirked. "My parents had no vision; they did not want to bring out the full potential of our country. They knew I had better plans but they didn't agree with them, so they wanted to force me to do unimportant things for years before I can start running the company.

"But now, thanks to my monsters, I can inherit all of the company and show the world what I can do."

"So you did kill your own parents," said John. "You took away their lives because you wanted to and because you could, and you didn't apologize." He shook his head. "I'd be impressed… if you actually did any of the work yourself."

Gail looked between John and Sid. She didn't know if it was wise for her former colleague to intentionally rile the young man up, but she had an idea why he was doing it.

"Did you not understand? I control the monsters," Sid replied smugly. "They do what _I_ want them to do. It was very much _my_ work. Having control is the sign of ultimate power."

John shrugged. "Sorry, pal, but I don't actually believe that the Heartless are under your command."

Sid angrily stormed back toward the edge of the building, presumably to fetch a Heartless from below to prove that he could control them, but was surprised to see the that the fight had moved closer. The students were now on the roof of a neighboring building, fighting off the noticeably fewer number of Heartless as they made their way closer to the rip.

Sid glared at the shiny glint of Beca's Keyblade slicing through his monsters.

"You're just a pathetic, entitled little boy who sought to outshine his brilliant parents," laughed John. "But you're way off, kid. Your parents _had_ a vision. What you have is lunacy."

That seemed to do the trick.

"Shut up!" shouted Sid. "Monsters, _attack_ that man!" Blinded by his rage, Sid didn't notice that Gail was no longer with them, but was actually making her way to the control room where she could broadcast the memory modifiers. John had been distracting Sid all this time to give her the chance to slip out unnoticed. What he also didn't notice was that instead of going to John, his so-called "monsters" seemed to be attracted to _him_. They circled around his body and seemed to feed off his infuriated energy.

"What are you doing? I said attack _that_ man!" he cried angrily.

"Oh, they're much more attracted to the growing darkness inside you than anything _I_ have to offer," said John, clasping his hands behind his back as though observing an interesting science experiment.

"No! Stop!"

Sid's 'orders' fell on deaf ears. The moment fear entered his heart, the Heartless pounced on it. The young man was buried under a flurry of darkness, and what little of his face John saw through the dark cloud was pale and disfigured in raw terror as the Heartless ripped him apart.

* * *

Beca saw an opening and immediately shot like a cannon toward the open face of the building, where she had been sealing the Corridor of Darkness just moments ago. She looked around briefly just to check if she wouldn't be interrupted this time, and saw the Professor standing comfortably in front of the nightmare-inducing scene of a man being torn apart by Heartless.

She cringed and turned her focus to what was more important. She raised her Keyblade and began closing the hole between the worlds, and, thanks to her fellow students keeping up the fight, she was not interrupted until the dark mass finally disappeared.

With their Corridor closed and the man manipulating them reduced to nothing, the Heartless' energy would steadily wane, which meant that the students' only problem was to get rid of the remaining Heartless and hope that Gail could broadcast the memory modifiers in time before the global media arrived. By the time they had accomplished the former, Gail had rejoined the Professor and his students on the top floor of the tower.

"The broadcast is running at the moment," she panted. "ISPs have been hacked and AMG is remotely deleting any posts or media uploads concerning the incident."

"What's the cover story?" Beca asked out of habit, though a part of her was doubtful that something less than full on terror attack could convince the locals that nothing too out of the ordinary had occurred.

"Nothing," Gail shook her head, surprising them all. "At least for the international media. The story had spread so far out of our hands that I had to forgo the cover story and just focus on making sure that there no more stories surface online. After that, it's easy to spin it into fake news. As for the local media, I have a journalist friend working on a gang violence angle as we speak. Luckily, those Heartless were humanoid, otherwise I don't know what could have covered up another attack on this city."

Luke remained unconvinced. "But what about the witnesses? There must have been thousands who saw the Heartless flying around the H-tower."

"Most have evacuated the city by the time they attacked Beca, but..." Gail pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head wearily. "If anyone comes forward with that story, I'll just have to pull some more strings. Don't worry about it," she said vaguely, and then added with a worried murmur, "God, I hope no one would find it odd to forget an entire day of their lives."

"Probably not as much as forgetting three months, or an entire person," Stacie said pointedly. Aubrey glanced worriedly at the Beta team, since they didn't know about the issue with Chloe, but they just shrugged it off as a bad joke.

"In any case, I wouldn't call this mission a success just yet," sighed Gail. "We have to continue doing clean up for the next few days to make sure that the story is _completely_ gone."

The Barden students nodded and trooped back into the jet, feeling tired but otherwise fulfilled as they put their powers to good use that day. Only Luke continued to be troubled by the likelihood of someone not remembering the truth. They had never encountered a Heartless attack of a scale this wide, so he strongly suspected that their usual clean up techniques weren't sufficient.

* * *

"Beca! Beca, wake up!"

Beca felt her shoulder being shaken roughly and did not appreciate it. She blew away whoever was waking her up with a gust of air and groaned, "I'm not late for school. I still have five minutes before the first bell…"

"No! This is worse than school!" The semi-conscious brunette recognized her best friend's panicking voice. "You've got to look out the window—oh, never mind."

Jesse had pulled back Beca's curtains only to be faced with the east side of the grounds. Beca hissed and covered her eyes with her arms when the sun blinded her, but Jesse pulled her arms back and dragged her out of bed. "Come to my room, you'll see!"

They padded down the carpeted hallways in their pajamas to Jesse's room, which faced north. "What am I supposed to be looking at?" Beca asked grumpily as she squinted out the window with half-lidded eyes.

"The gate," pointed Jesse. "I think there's some sort of rally going on outside."

Beca rubbed her eyes to get rid of the blurriness of being recently woken. She squinted again and could just make out a small crowd around the Institute's gate. "That's weird... What do you think they want?" she muttered curiously.

"You really are an idiot, aren't you, Mitchell?" came Bumper's voice from Jesse's open door.

They turned around and saw him leaning against the frame. Unlike all the previous times he'd insulted them, however, Bumper's tone did not suggest his being smug or cocky. In fact, the slightly pale, stony expression on his face showed that he was dead serious.

"Don't you know what happened last night?"

Beca and Jesse exchanged nervous looks. "What happened?"

"The whole fucking world knows about our powers."

* * *

 **Response to reviews:**

 **NerdBoss105** (Oct. 9) - Well, now you know haha. I'm sorry it had to be Luke to snap first though. :(

 **xcombixgirlx** (Oct. 10) - Haha! I'm sure Disgust would disagree and insist that _she_ is the coolest. Yeah, I don't plan on leaving him unpleasant for long anyway. And you were right! They wouldn't be that mean to each other under normal circumstances.

 **Maggie** (Oct. 10) - Now you know, too, haha. Thanks! Shit's about to hit the fan soon, I hope that keeps you interested. :)

 **Guest** (Oct. 10) - I love it when people read this all in a day! Thanks! If you need a crash course, there's a video by 'Frustrated Jacob' on YouTube that explains the entire Kingdom Hearts franchise in 20 minutes. You don't need to know everything except the terminology part beginning at 0:34 up to around 1:09 and, briefly, 3:18 to 3:36 to understand what happened between Chloe's and Beca's hearts. A very astute observation! You are correct haha. Don't worry, progress with Chloe will happen soon, although I'm not sure if I can say the same for Staubrey? I honestly haven't decided how their story goes haha.

* * *

 **A/N:** This chapter turned out longer than I expected. I apologize if there's too much going on, but it will all tie in soon. Remember, you can always ask questions if you're confused. :) And as promised, the Herreras are gone after this chapter haha. They were merely a plot device.


	14. Spare Some Change

**Chapter Fourteen: Spare Some Change**

"What kind of idiot downloads YouTube videos on their computer?" John burst out angrily.

"Well, 'idiot' might be a relative term. Under different circumstances, he could be a genius," Charlene objected thoughtfully.

"Ha-ha," John replied mirthlessly. "This is a disaster! How am I going to deal with the students? Their parents?"

"Just tell them what you had planned to tell them. We're not at fault—we didn't breach our contract. The media found out because of some kid who doesn't quite understand the way the Internet works," argued Charlene. "None of that was the Institute's fault."

Only a day had passed since the news broke out that the students at the Barden Institute were more 'exceptional' than they were letting on. Thanks to the one lucky (or unlucky) insomniac who had downloaded a YouTube video showing what was happening in Saint John's Island mere _minutes_ before the site was hacked and the video deleted, and posted it on his blog with the descriptive albeit inaccurate title, 'Monsters Swarm Mexican City But No One Remembers—WTF?!' most of the world now knew about the Barden students.

"Gotta admire his flair for writing though," Charlene muttered sarcastically as she scrolled through the blog post for the nth time. They hadn't bothered taking it down after it went viral, since that would only attract more attention to the matter. "' _I thought it was a dope new movie teaser from Marvel—you know, guerrilla marketing shit'_ ," she read aloud with a shake of her head. "And he spelled it 'gorilla' like the animal."

"If only his tragic spelling was enough to distract from what he just unleashed," sighed the Professor.

Despite the alarm with which the people at Barden dealt with their discovery, the existence of people with special powers was not exactly earth-shattering news. It had been known for quite a few decades in the United States—although 'known' might be too light a word to describe the experience.

Since the first attempt at regulating them, fewer and fewer people with powers were inclined to make themselves known. And with conspiratorial rumors of secret experiments in underground laboratories, to play it safe they dropped off the radar completely, leaving no explanation of their powers. As such, over the years their existence gradually devolved into an urban myth. That is, to those who were not in the loop.

While majority of the public lost interest in chasing fantastical stories of superhuman beings, some—like John Smith and the U.S. government—had never completely let it go. So years later when strange things started happening again, rather than create another missed opportunity, they kept things under wraps. The rumors of powerful humans being experimented on in secret labs still continued, but for over a decade there had been peace (Chloe's case notwithstanding).

So, while it was a surprise to find that the rumors were half-true, the real earth-shattering news was that there were institutions like Barden that organized and _trained_ these people. And that frightened a lot of people.

John was brought out of his thoughts by a knock on the door.

"Professor?" said Luke. "We're all ready."

John looked up and nodded wearily. It was a scene reminiscent of the one just a few months ago, when Luke had popped in to say that the team had made a decision to rescue Chloe. He remembered being anxious that they wouldn't want to, but considering everything that had happened recently—not just with the media but pretty much in the past few disappointing weeks, he would have gladly encouraged them not to take on the mission if it meant creating an alternate universe that didn't end up _here_.

His chair creaked as he rose from it and prepared to address his students. When he entered the antechamber, all the students looked up expectantly. A few of them were bringing their luggage, which the Professor had already expected, while the others (the Alpha Team in particular) were sitting comfortably—well, as comfortably as they could look given the situation—on the couches.

"Thank you all for coming," he began sincerely. "I know yesterday must have been a stressful time for you and your families so I appreciate that you chose to hear me out today."

Not everyone had, though. For instance, the dark-haired pixie, Alice, had packed up and left at dawn the day before, narrowly avoiding the news crews gathering at the gates.

"I will be giving you your options this morning and whatever your decision will be, the Barden Institute will respect it," he said, looking at each of them. "Let's deal with the easy ones first, shall we? To those who _weren't_ seen in the video...

"Because the institute itself was implicated, you may want to leave Barden and simply claim that you had no idea what was going on in the school—whether they believe you or not is, unfortunately, out of my control but it is nevertheless an option. _Or_ you choose to stay. But if you do, I cannot promise that you won't be faced with a lot of the same scrutiny as your classmates.

"To the students who _were_ clearly seen in the video," he continued, "you may also choose to leave and return to your families. But if you are in any way rejected by your peers or find your safety jeopardized, please know that there is always a place for you at Barden. Or, again, you may choose to stay. Times will be tough, but I promise to do everything in my power to keep you from any difficulty.

"To students whose parents were previously unaware of your powers," he glanced toward Beca and Jesse, "I would be happy to personally address any of their concerns, but if things don't turn out favorably, I repeat: Barden will always be a safe place for you. In my ten years as headmaster of this institute, we have tried to recruit countless young men and women whose parents have despised their children's gifts. We obviously feel differently about that."

John observed the small crowd of students as they considered their options.

"I also spoke to my lawyer," he added. "I think it's important for you to be aware that there should be no reason for our government, or any person for that matter, to detain, or refuse service to, any one of you on the basis of your powers. You do not have to answer any questions that you don't want to answer without a lawyer present—you are still protected by the law. But if they try to use force to restrain you, I must ask you to resist _retaliating_ with your powers. You may block and avoid, but do not give them a reason to see you—to see _all_ of you, collectively—as a threat."

John took a deep breath. "I cannot stress enough how difficult the next few days, maybe the next few months, will be for people like you," he said sadly. "In the coming days, you should expect a lot of people discriminating against you, or fearing you. But this, too, shall pass. Thank you for the time you've spent here, and the service you have done protecting the world from Heartless. Charlene and I will make ourselves available if you ever want to talk."

With those parting words, most of the students filed out the antechamber, either to go back to their rooms or to head out the door. As John expected, the Alpha team stayed behind.

* * *

"Any word from Gail?" Cynthia Rose asked, when they had the antechamber to themselves.

The illustrious founder and CEO of AMG had avoided contacting them since the news broke, out of caution. Though she personally wasn't seen in the leaked video, if the government agency behind the Project found out that she had been involved with Barden, it could spell trouble not only for her and the Professor, but for all the students as well.

The Professor shook his head. "No, but I'm sure she's furious on your behalf," he said with a small smile. "Have you told your parents?" he asked Jesse and Beca.

"I wasn't clearly seen in the video," said Jesse. "So I can still lie, but Beca…"

"My mom doesn't really have time to watch the news," the brunette shrugged. "But I think I'll tell her. She'll make the connection when she hears that it's Barden anyway... if none of her gossipy co-workers tell her first, that is."

The Professor looked confused at Beca's nonchalance but nodded.

"But speaking of our families," piped up Aubrey. "You said there would be a lot of discrimination. Do you think our families are going to be affected by that, too?"

"That depends on how much of your identities the media will have fished out by now," the Professor answered with distaste. "I've made sure your records here and at the University are kept confidential. I guess it would depend on whether you can trust your old acquaintances not to sell you out, and how public your lives are on social media."

The students exchanged looks. They had already deactivated their accounts the moment they heard the news, but they couldn't do anything about the potential rats they had in their contacts.

The Professor rubbed his face wearily. "Well, I'm off to meet another lawyer in D.C.. Charlene will be staying here, for once," he added, waving a hand at the door to his office. "I've instructed her to get rid of the media circus and increase the privacy around here." He gave them one final nod in goodbye before retreating to his private chambers.

On their way out, the six friends gave each other reassuring looks or pats on the back. Not all of them had been seen in the video—Jesse and Cynthia Rose weren't—but despite that they each knew that they were going to go through the coming shit-storm _together._ No matter what.

* * *

"What do we do now?" Jesse asked aloud as they walked down the hallway.

"D'you mean right now, or…?" Beca waved her hand to indicate the inexplicable situation they were in.

"Right now," he answered quickly. "I don't even wanna _think_ about what we're gonna do about the situation we're in."

"Maybe we should relax?" suggested Cynthia Rose. "You know, have some fun before we aren't able to anymore."

"You're making it sound like we're dying or something," Stacie said amusedly.

"Luke! Aubrey!"

They turned around to see Charlene poking her head out of the door they had just exited. "Could I borrow you two for a few hours?"

Though surprised, the two blondes nodded at once. There was no question that they were free that day, since everyone at Barden had collectively decided not to attend their classes until things settled down. Aubrey, Luke, Bumper, and the other college students didn't go to Barden University, and the high school homeschool teachers that didn't outright quit were asked not to come to work.

"I guess we'll see you guys later," said Aubrey. She and Luke then turned around and followed Charlene back to the Professor's office.

The rest of them continued walking until they reached the landing that opened to the grand foyer. They leaned against the banister railings and watched as yet another of their fellow students carried her luggage out the door and into a large black car with heavily tinted windows.

"There goes Lana," Cynthia Rose hummed wistfully.

"Did you really think she'd stay?" snorted Beca, watching as the blonde girl entered the car without so much as a glance back at the mansion. "Frankly, I'm surprised she didn't hightail it outta here with Alice yesterday."

"She wanted to but her parents were too busy to pick her up," murmured Jesse, once again bringing them news from the grapevine. "Also, I heard she's planning on getting plastic surgery and changing her identity."

"Won't work. She'll still be identifiable by that bitchy personality," came a voice from behind them. For the second time that morning, they all spun around in unison.

"Bumper," Beca greeted with a smirk. Only nowadays it was a kinder smirk—sort of a half-smile. Her eyes scanned around him and she noticed the lack of luggage. "I guess you're staying?"

"Don't get your hopes up yet, Mitchell," he replied, waggling a stubby finger at her. "I'm still undecided."

"What do your parents say?" asked Cynthia Rose.

Bumper made a face and shrugged. "They let me do whatever I want." He stuffed his hands into his pockets and they stood around in silence for a while. "Whatever. I think hanging around you losers is affecting my awesomeness so…" Without another word, leapfrogged over the railings, landed on the ground floor, and strutted his way to the kitchens.

"You know, that may have been the nicest interaction I've ever had with Bumper," mused Stacie and the others chuckled in agreement.

"I think he's kinda sad, though," Jesse said with a sympathetic twitch of his mouth. "Uni's packing his bags."

The girls expressed their surprise at the planned departure of Bumper's long-time crony, whom they only knew by the nickname 'Unicycle' because he always rode one around, even indoors.

"Luke will also be bummed to hear that he's leaving," remarked Beca. "Those two were practically gym buddies."

Uni had the superhuman ability of adoptive muscle memory—the term Luke used to describe the ability mimic any action or movement after only a brief observation of it—as well as the _natural_ ability to multi-task. Both of these made him an excellent training partner whenever Luke wanted to try out new combinations of fighting techniques.

Stacie shook her head lightly. "I don't get it. Why are they all leaving? I mean, Barden is the safest place for any of us, right?"

"Some of them don't have a choice, Stace," shrugged Jesse. "Uni's parents asked him to come home so…" He trailed off and gulped, realizing that _he_ might be asked to go home very soon. He exchanged knowing looks with Beca, who sighed.

"All right," she said, pushing herself off the railings. "I've put it off for too long. Everyone follow me."

"Where are we going?" Cynthia Rose asked curiously.

"Library. You guys are gonna help Jesse and me figure out what to say our parents."

* * *

Later that night, after spending the rest of the day composing a script that she would read to her mom on the fateful moment of revelation, Beca was surprised to find a slim blonde sitting on her bed when she entered her room.

"Gail?" Beca wondered aloud, closing the door behind her.

"Sorry to ambush you in your room like this," the woman apologized nervously, pulling her hand back from Beca's bedside table. "I'm lucky you're alone."

"Is everything all right?" asked Beca, taking note of the way Gail was fidgeting. She assumed her bed wasn't the problem because she had made sure that her bed was as soft as a cloud, after personally experiencing what it was like to lie on one.

"Yes, yes, of course. The more important question is," Gail fixed her with a piercing stare, "how are _you_?"

Beca shrugged noncommittally. "Still kind of numb to it all. I think the Professor's keeping his hand on the wave of shit that's about to go down soon so… we're all kinda just waiting at this point."

The woman's shoulders sagged. "I'm sorry I couldn't—"

"Gail, it's not your fault," assured Beca. "No one blames you. We all blame that kid who downloads YouTube videos," she added, rolling her eyes. "I mean, come on, why waste disk space like that?"

She walked over to her desk chair and sat on it, waiting for Gail to explain the reason why she was in her room. But Gail did not seem to pick up on Beca's body language and, instead of explaining her clandestine visit, she pointed at the funny picture on Beca's bedside table.

"I was looking at this before you came in."

Beca glanced at the picture and chuckled in embarrassment. "Yeah, I have no idea what I'm doing there either. Some sort of chicken dance, maybe? Jesse must have—"

"You were giving Chloe a piggyback ride."

 _You were giving Chloe a piggyback ride._

No other combination of words could have been more alien to Beca than the ones that were just uttered. She echoed them in her head a few more times, deconstructing each word, stringing them back together, and processing the visuals that came with that piece of information. Then, a series of emotions went through her in this order:

First was surprise at the level of friendship she must have had with Chloe, since she wouldn't (not to mention couldn't) give _any_ of the five other members of the Alpha team a goddamn piggyback ride. Not while wearing _that_ goofy smile.

Next was embarrassment over why she'd had something like that framed and placed on her bedside table—especially in this day and age when almost _nobody_ goes through the hassle of developing photos anymore.

That was followed by a throb of sadness at the realization that Chloe _really_ must have meant a lot to her if she was willing to do both the act and the framing of it—which didn't seem to make sense to Beca, who couldn't even picture Chloe in her mind. Someone that close to her couldn't possibly have disappeared so easily from her memory...

Each rationalizing thought she added on top of every emotion banded together to form the final one: suspicion. "How would you know that?" she asked slowly, narrowing her eyes.

"This isn't my first time in your bedroom, Beca."

Beca made a face.

Gail put up a regretful finger. "Wow. Okay, let me rephrase that," she said, shaking her head. "I walked you back to your room the night of the fight with Chloe's Heartless. There were still traces of Chloe's Nobody's existence that night, one of which was this picture."

"Huh." Beca frowned. "I guess that's one of the things I don't remember… Chloe's Nobody is the empty one, right? The one with no heart... so then," she licked her lips, "this is what you meant about all traces disappearing? Pictures, videos, letters—all gone? She just vanished from existence?"

Gail nodded and paused for a moment before asking, "How _do_ you remember those three months? The months leading up to the fight."

It was a fair question. When the Professor and Gail had filled them in after their battle in Florida, they only talked about what the students _didn't_ remember, but not so much about what they _did_ remember. And because of that, Beca was having a difficult time answering the question now.

"I haven't thought about it, really." Beca rubbed the back of her neck. "I may have mixed up what I actually remember with what you and the Professor told us."

Gail crossed her legs. "Humor me."

"Um, well," Beca leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. "Maybe it'll be easier if I retrace my steps. How about I start when we all met?"

"You and Jesse were on a treasure hunt but instead found Luke, Aubrey, and the Heartless at the abandoned mansion. Is that correct?"

"Right. Jesse and I sort of knew the Aubrey and Luke from our younger, uh, delinquent days," said Beca, "so we kinda got into a bit of an argument. Then we were interrupted by the Heartless and ended up fighting them together. After that, while Jesse and I looked for the treasure, Aubrey and Luke searched around the mansion for more Heartless. But now we know," she added hastily, "that they were actually looking for Chloe."

Gail nodded and let Beca continue.

"So anyway, Jesse and I didn't find anything but I guess Aubrey and Luke did because I remember being asked to fetch the getaway car—oh, wait, I didn't know it was a getaway car yet." Beca frowned. "See, I told you, I get things mixed up... Uh, I was just driving the car for some reason, and next thing I know, we were headed for Barden, where Luke introduced us to the Professor and he offered us a scholarship in exchange for helping Luke and Aubrey out."

"What were the first few weeks at the institute like?"

"Fine, I guess," shrugged Beca. "Having fewer classmates and living on campus made schoolwork easier… but the highlight of my weeks were trainings with Luke."

"Did you make friends with everyone easily?"

Beca opened her mouth to say that she wasn't really an outgoing type of person, but it didn't seem to add up to her situation now. She had never been popular in school yet the Alpha team was practically an exclusive clique at the institute; she had always thought her attitude was a turn-off for people yet she had made four times as many friends in her first three months at Barden as she did for six years.

"I guess?" Beca answered uncertainly. "Well, I was already friends with Jesse… and then Luke and Aubrey—well, Luke is easy to get along with. Aubrey just… sort of got more tolerable."

"How about Stacie and Cynthia Rose?"

Beca scrunched her face trying to recall her altered memories. "I don't remember hanging out with them that much. Not until… oh yeah, the day things got weird. It was on the second mission to the abandoned mansion; we were asked to investigate more Heartless appearances. We ended up at your house that night, where we found out that Stacie and CR were actually working for you to investigate the Heartless, too."

"Did you remember anything else about the mission? Like how you acquired the Keyblade?"

Beca extended her arm to the side and 'summoned' the Keyblade. After so many battles with it, she supposed it had grown to trust her and obey her commands more fluidly, because she had never been able to make it appear at will before. It materialized in her hand with light _clink_ sound. She tried to recall the first time she wrapped her fingers around the hilt, in that dark tower, hearing the non-voice, and stepping onto the colorful stained glass…

"I remembered a voice saying things about me being ready for something," she muttered, dismissing the blade and looking back at Gail. "That's how the whole 'chosen one' joke started, right?"

Gail nodded, motioning Beca to continue.

"I remember the mission ending with sealing my first ever rip, and then instead of taking us back to Barden, Cynthia Rose knocked us out with sleep bombs and brought us to your place."

"Straight to Westchester?"

"Yup," nodded Beca. "I know you said we had a stopover at a library to discuss everything about Chloe but," Beca lifted her hands, "nothing. My memory skips to waking up at your house the next day, and the Professor coming over telling us there was this big-ass Heartless running loose in Florida. I remember thinking that you and the Professor were old buddies who disagreed on how to deal with the Heartless," she continued. "And that in the end you both agreed that the Heartless in Florida was a way bigger deal and you needed me to save the world or something. But then later on, you guys told us about that fucked up science experiment you did, and that the Heartless was actually a girl named Chloe's and we needed to destroy it in order to restore her back to her full being."

Beca's frown seemed permanent at this point as she revisited the thoughts she had months ago when they were told the truth about Chloe. "But, the thing is, I don't know what it was like when I first met Chloe, or how we even became friends… just that I did and that we were. And _you_ can't tell me either because you obviously don't know."

Gail nodded again. The memories of the little things, the everyday, seemingly unimportant events that formed the building blocks of unique bonds between friends weren't something Gail or the Professor had ever witnessed personally. So when the students lost their memories of Chloe's Nobody, so did they lose that unique bond.

"And I believe you guys, really, I do," assured Beca. "But like I told Charlene—it's hard to use Chloe as a source of motivation when we can't remember anything about her besides what you told us."

"I understand," Gail said with a small smile. "It was my fault for hoping that it was the same as remembering her personally."

Beca gave a reluctant nod, but the word 'personally' seemed to light a switch in her head. She got the feeling that there was something she _should_ be remembering, something that Gail was holding back from telling them the first time.

Something that made that intimate photograph make sense.

So Beca asked. Gail studied her face anxiously before responding in somewhat of a tangent. "What happened recently with the news," she began slowly, as though careful not to sound accusing, "gave me a bad feeling that the mission will take a backseat while you guys sort things out."

The image of Aubrey insisting on completing the mission flashed through Beca's mind in a split second, and it made her wonder what it was about blondes and dedication. "Gail, we promised to get Chloe back—"

"I'm not worried that you won't do it eventually. I'm worried that it might be too late when you _do_ get around to it." Gail swallowed nervously. "But if there's a chance it would give you a push, I feel like now is the best time to say it."

In the pause following Gail's vague statement, Beca took another glance at the photo and put the pieces together herself—Gail's nervous glances over the past few months, Charlene questioning her motivation when they left the Realm, and even that unusual feeling that _something_ was missing…

"Was Chloe… Did Chloe mean something more to me?"

The words felt awkward coming out of her mouth. Even with the euphemism she used, the idea still seemed so bizarre. She'd even go so far as to say it was _impossible_ for her to have a girlfriend—she could barely stomach the word in her own thoughts—given that she cringed at the idea of committed relationships in general. She couldn't be in one herself, could she? Let alone one that seemed to develop astonishingly quickly.

"I can already see you overthinking things, Beca," said Gail, in a calm tone that misled Beca, who looked up with hopeful eyes. But Gail bluntly shot her hope down. "But yes, you were a couple."

Beca's initial response was just a string of unintelligible syllables, so she cleared her throat and tried again. "I'm in a _relationship_? I, uh, okay. With Chloe—?" She exhaled heavily, begging her mind to calm down instead of trying to imagine a scenario in which that was possible. It failed for one very obvious reason. "I don't even _know_ what she looks like!"

She stood up and paced the room, running both a hand through her hair and a Rolodex of generic female faces through her mind's eye as it tried to grasp the glaringly abstract concept of Chloe Beale. It felt like being told by your parents that you had a long-lost sibling given up for adoption—Beca _sort of_ believed it because why would anyone lie about something like that, but she also couldn't _fully_ believe it until she saw her in person. At least when Chloe was just her "friend" she didn't have to imagine being attracted to her…

"So now you can understand how upset I was when you asked who Chloe was three days after saying you'll always love her," Gail was saying, effectively snapping Beca out of her thoughts. But if Gail thought she was helping the situation, she was dead wrong.

"L-love?"

Beca's stomach fell. Up until this point she still could have believed a fraction of what Gail had told her. But love? She could practically hear the whirring of her brain going into over—before it activated its trusty fail-safe measure: complete and absolute denial. "Okay, I think you have me mixed up with someone else," she said with a stiff chuckle. "A-Are you sure it wasn't _Jesse_? I mean, I know he's with Aubrey now but he's more into this whirlwind romance crap. Or Luke, I mean, he could—"

Gail had certainly expected Beca to be surprised, even doubtful, but not quite so in denial. Realizing that she had approached the whole thing from the wrong angle, Gail zipped her mouth shut and let the young brunette continue her rambling and sort out her thoughts on her own. Gail's silence, however, was enough to answer Beca's question, and after a few mumblings of the words "no, no, no" and "oh God," the brunette ended up staring motionlessly at the framed picture on her bedside.

"Beca?" Gail prodded tentatively after a full minute of her not moving. "Are you okay?"

"Look, Gail," Beca cleared her throat, "I don't know how to explain—how to convince you—that this is impossible."

"What's impossible?"

"What you just dropped on me!" Beca hissed indignantly. (She had resisted yelling throughout the entire conversation since Stacie's room was just beside hers—who knows where that girl's ears could be right now.) "That I love Chloe!"

"And why would that be 'impossible'?" asked Gail, complete with air quotes.

Beca did not reciprocate the woman's levity so she formed the words as maturely as they could be before saying them out loud. "Because I would _never_ be in a relationship in the first place, hence the impossibility of _all_ the things you said. The piggyback rides, the lo—" Her voice caught in her throat. "Just no, okay? Trust me. It's not possible."

"Oh, come on, Beca." Gail crossed her arms and frowned, clearly not buying it. "Don't sell yourself short, you're a beautiful girl—"

"Not for _that_ reason," Beca interjected through gritted teeth. "But because I don't... Argh, okay, this will sound stupid but hear me out."

Beca never would have imagined that she'd be in this situation; sitting in her room, convincing Gail that she . She had no way of knowing how convincing she would be. "Because I don't believe in getting into relationships," she said. "At least not the kind that you're implying Chloe and I had."

She refrained from telling Gail that the kinds of relationships she _did_ get into, though few in her young life, were more of the 'casual fling' type. But Gail's pursed her lips and sweeping look suggested that she got the gist. "That's the problem with kids these days, they're so melodramatic—"

"Hey! I'm _not!_ " Beca insisted, shaking her head vigorously. "I hate drama. This was a legit, conscious, mature decision I made when I was eight."

Gail raised an eyebrow.

"I was mature for my age, okay?" Beca said with a glare. "But my point is, this isn't just some angsty reaction to my dad leaving; I'm not trying to make excuses or anything. I just honestly _don't see_ the benefit of those kinds of relationships. Is it companionship? Affection? Love I can understand, but I've had my mom and Jesse all these years so I know _for a fact_ that I can live without romance."

Beca settled back in her chair and softened her tone so she wouldn't sound too unreasonable. "But having to care about what someone thinks of you, or having to worry about saying the right things to make the other person feel a certain way—who needs the aggravation, seriously? I can live without it," she said firmly. "And this has pretty much been a fact of life for me for the past ten years, which is why I'm finding it _extremely_ hard to believe that, for three months of my life, it suddenly _wasn't_."

At this point, Gail wasn't sure what to make of this mess. Beca didn't seem like an irrational teenager spouting angsty post-breakup clichés, but at the same time Gail didn't feel right believing her. "I still don't understand," she confessed. "How you can be so against this relationship—?"

"I'm not _against_ this relationship," Beca said quickly, to which Gail threw her an even more confused look. "I don't particularly like that it happened," Beca clarified, "but the fact that you said I was in a relationship with Chloe is not the reason I'm—for lack of a better term—freaking the fuck out."

"You're not making it easier to understand you, Beca."

"You said I _loved_ her," Beca said in a serious tone. "Look, I'm not stupid. I know—like, super deep down—it's possible to have healthy relationships, and not all of them end up screwing you for life. But I also know, in my _heart_ , I would never tell someone _I had just met_ that I loved her. I understand why you thought it might motivate me if I knew about the relationship, but for the sake of honesty—and for the sake of my conscience—I think you should know."

Beca looked up and Gail was finally able to read the expression on her face. It was guilt.

"I lied to this girl."

* * *

Gail wasn't easily rendered speechless. Her professional life often required conducting interviews and giving important presentations to stakeholders, and she got through those by planning ahead and preparing for anything that might be asked of her. Over time, as she climbed the numerous ladders of the business world, that skill grew intuitive until everything felt effortless.

But that moment, a simple move made by an eighteen-year-old—and that any rational human being could have predicted might happen—completely blindsided her. She was utterly unprepared.

 _What if Beca didn't believe you?_

Beca was undoubtedly being honest and reasonable about her reaction to everything—after all, Gail could not deny that even she was surprised when she first heard of their relationship. But there also no denying that her own memories didn't lie. Gail could clearly remember the first time she had met Beca because, incidentally, it was also the first time she had been angrily yelled at by someone two decades her junior, ever since she had teased a much younger Chloe for being a Hufflepuff.

Beca's tone that night at the library, stubbornly demanding for Chloe's whereabouts, had had that familiar mix of anger and protectiveness that only surfaced when you believed someone's life was in danger and you were helpless to do anything about it. And although the Beca currently in the room with her, devoid of any personal memories of Chloe, might argue that those weren't signs of love, Gail had a lot more memories than that to back her claim:

There was Beca focusing all her energy on keeping a slumbering Chloe comfortable; placing her soft kisses on her forehead as she slept soundly in her arms en route to Westchester; their 'practically-married' banter over breakfast the next morning; and the promises they had made to each other later that day, when the time had come to fight Chloe's Heartless and say good bye.

 _Beca loves Chloe._

Gail was absolutely certain of that. But there was a reason she wasn't saying any of this out loud, why she wasn't insisting that Beca believe her. It was the same reason she didn't tell Beca about the relationship in the first place: to avoid causing either of them any more pain than necessary. She hadn't told Beca before now to save her the heartbreak in case Chloe was already gone forever, or if it turned out that Chloe didn't remember anything from her time as a Nobody either.

Four months ago, Gail didn't even want to consider the first possibility—Chloe _had_ to be alive, waiting for them somewhere beyond the darkness. They followed the literature and did everything right. So instead Gail fixated on the second possibility and did what she thought was best for the two girls—she kept Beca unaware, because having both of them lack memories of their own relationship was painless, and if it turned out that Chloe _did_ remember, then the only wrong Gail had committed would be delaying their inevitable coupling.

Because _of course_ Beca would fall in love with Chloe all over again, right?

But decades of professional success had prevented Gail from being taught this lesson earlier on in her life: that not every decision she makes, no matter how well-intentioned, was right.

She had taken the team's retreat from the Realm as her first sign of being horribly wrong. As the days after their return ticked on without much progress, the first possibility weighed heavier and heavier on Gail's mind, right until the media outbreak, when it reached critical mass. With yet another distraction, the chances of the team getting back into the Realm were pitiful, so Gail was pushed to change her strategy.

By finally telling Beca, she had hoped to speed up the process and settle her fears about Chloe's safety, but at a higher risk of causing Beca pain. Because in two of three possible outcomes—Chloe's death or her own memory loss—Beca would come out as the loser, after going through the rollercoaster of emotions Gail had just strapped her on.

But once again, Gail was dead wrong. Because with Beca's unprecedented denial of ever being in love with Chloe, neither of Gail's two expected scenarios would even play out:

Beca would _not_ have fallen in love with Chloe again, because she never loved Chloe in the first place. Beca would _not_ have been heartbroken if Chloe didn't remember, because then she'd just be off the hook. But now, thanks to Gail's blunder, if Chloe came back safe and sound, memories intact, then both girls would have an uncomfortable, and certainly not painless, conversation.

Gail had to hand it to herself. She had managed to elegantly create this giant cluster fuck, when all she wanted was to accomplish with Chloe what she hadn't been able to with her husband: bring her back from the darkness. Meddling with people's hearts was not part of the plan.

* * *

"Can I sleep on it?" Beca croaked after the longest pause in their conversation.

"I didn't ask you to decide anything, Beca," Gail reminded her gently. And a little sadly.

"I know. But I still have to think about… all of this."

Gail nodded and rose from the bed with difficulty. It seemed the weight had doubled since she first entered the room. "Oh, hang on." She paused on her way out and took something out of her coat pocket. "I thought this might help with the remembering... I had to break a few laws to get it so please keep it safe."

Beca reached out to take a small photograph from Gail. Looking down at it, she couldn't help but smile at the bright, happy face of a little toddler in pigtails. _She's a redhead_ , Beca thought amusedly. She hadn't even considered that. But what captivated her the most were the girl's large, beautiful, blue eyes, very different from her own dark and stormy ones. The photo was a little old and grainy but even then Beca could tell that those eyes lit up the room.

"Thanks for this," she muttered, still not taking her eyes off of the girl.

"No problem," smiled Gail. "Well, you know how to contact me when… if..."

Beca nodded understandingly and moved over to her bed after Gail had left the room silently without finishing her sentence. She inserted the picture of Chloe in the corner of the picture frame that supposedly contained the photo of her and the grown-up Chloe.

She stared at it for one more moment, hating herself for inadvertently contributing to the eventual crushing of this little girl's heart. But what made things worse–even worse than the deceit–was the fact that, if it were all true, then Chloe must have been waiting for _months,_ probably thinking that Beca was doing everything in her power to get to her.

Sure, as a _friend_ she should have been doing the same thing, but being in a relationship with the rescuee certainly warranted more effort from the rescuer.

Beca turned the lights off and lay in her bed with her eyes closed. The hollow feeling in her gut grew worse as the unrealistic, almost plastic, images of herself being openly affectionate and romantic, accompanied by the quiet self-loathing and blame over the very inability to picture them, made it so that it wasn't until much later that sleep finally gave her peace.

* * *

"May I remind you, John, that your students are _adults_?"

"Just because they aren't minors, doesn't mean their right to privacy is less important," responded John. Despite his calm demeanor, he was walking fairly briskly toward the hired car service, desperate to get back to his hotel as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the crowd of reporters and cameramen that followed him from the lawyer's office to the car didn't make it easy. Neither did the FBI Special Agent closely trailing him.

"You're not going to win that argument, John," the agent warned smugly. "This is an issue of National Security—at least, it _can_ be if I wanted it to. We're going to build our case and your students are going to have no choice but to spill _everything_."

"Yeah, well, fuck you very much, Paul," dismissed John, getting into the car and slamming the door in the FBI agent's face. He let out an angry huff and took out his phone to call his assistant.

" _Did the lawyer have good news?_ " was her greeting.

"Not enough," he growled. "Our defense can be blown away by a technicality, although he says the same could be said for the opposition. And because of the unique circumstances and surrounding controversy, he predicts that the media will play a big role in the decision," he added bitterly.

" _Is he suggesting we steer into the skid?_ "

"It's our best option."

There was a pause while Charlene considered John's statement. " _Do you want me to tell the students?_ "

"Let me get in touch with Gail first, maybe she can refer a publicist that could help us attack this the right way."

" _All right._ "

John hung up and immediately dialed Gail's number. While waiting for her to pick up, he pondered the road ahead.

He had ended up staying in D.C. longer than he had wanted to, but meeting with the best federal lawyers in the country was absolutely necessary if they were to quell the growing movement of dissent against 'mutants,' as his students and their kind were now being called. He thought it was quite a distasteful term that implied there was something wrong with them when indeed what made the mutants special made others envious.

Although, John would say that those youngsters had no one to blame for the media zeroing in on that term but themselves.

* * *

" _Ah, the devils are still at the gates," muttered Stacie, her arm resting lazily off the side of Luke's convertible as the car made its way out of the driveway. She, Luke, Aubrey, and Jesse_ _were on their way to the supermarket to pick up some groceries, since Barden's cook (and all the household staff) had been allowed to leave discreetly when the news broke._

 _The cameras started flashing nonstop as the reporters crowded around the car. Luke honked the horn loudly to get them to disperse but that still gave them plenty of time to get a clear shot of what they looked like._

" _If you're going to take pictures, might as well get the good stuff," called Stacie, striking a provocative pose and grabbing her boobs with a wink._

" _Stop that!" Aubrey reprimanded, grabbing Stacie's wrist and forcing it on the brunette's lap modestly. "We're not supposed to draw attention to ourselves."_

" _Oh, my goodies draw attention no matter what—"_

 _A reporter unceremoniously shoved a microphone in front of Stacie's chest, rudely cutting her off to ask, "What are your comments on the ongoing effort to conduct a formal investigation into the Barden Institute's terrorist intentions?"_

 _Stacie and Aubrey only glared at the man. Even Jesse from the front passenger's seat whipped his head around in disgust. Luke revved the engine threateningly to once again try to clear the crowd._ _Sensing that the students weren't open to answering questions, and that accusing a group of superhuman youths might not have been the smartest decision he'd made that day, the reporter backed away immediately._

 _But then another, braver one took a chance. "What about the growing pressure being put on Congress to re-enact the Superhuman Registration Act?"_

 _Stacie opened her mouth to say something vile, but was again cut off, this time by Aubrey._ " _The SRA was repealed mere_ months _after its enactment due to its unconstitutionality," the blonde countered sharply. "I'm sure whatever Congress cooks up next will not hold water either."_

 _Stacie closed her mouth and pointed at Aubrey smugly. "Yeah, what she said."_

 _The reporters were ecstatic over finally getting a response and felt encouraged to barrage them with more questions. Stacie heard the words "danger to society" and "necessary measures" and got riled up again. "_ _First of all, we are not a_ danger _to society_. _We fucking_ protect _it, okay? And second—"_

" _Stacie—!"_

" _For the same reason you can't discriminate against race, gender, disability, or sexual orientation—you can't discriminate against_ us _! We didn't ask to have our powers, but we have to_ live _with them—and, honestly, we've been doing nothing but good with it so leave us the fuck alone!"_ _With a final huff, Stacie crossed her arms and stared firmly ahead with her head held high. The reporters hurriedly turned to face their cameraperson to over-analyze and exaggerate Stacie's outburst._

 _Amidst their scrambling, Luke was finally able to drive away._ _Still keeping her steadfast expression, Stacie felt Aubrey's glaring eyes on her. "What?" she asked, confused. "Was that not good?"_

 _The blonde shook her head._ " _Not good."_

* * *

In just a few hours, the media had spun Stacie's 'born this way' rant and, along with the rest of the world, deduced somewhat correctly that it was a genetic mutation that caused their superhuman powers. As many more publications were reporting due to renewed interest, the origins of superhuman powers were never fully looked into during the first enactment of the Superhuman Registration Act; there were certainly many theories—alien abductions, radioactive exposure, etc.—but genetics was never seriously considered since they could never find volunteers.

John pursed his lips. He had not been pleased to hear about the media kerfuffle right in the middle of a meeting with the lawyers. He sighed when Gail still hadn't picked up after his third try to get in touch and supposed that she was busy working at her day job. So he made a note to call her later in the evening instead.

The sun was barely peeking above the horizon, bathing the sky in deep orange, when John's car pulled into the hotel. Wearily pushing the door to his room open moments later, he was greeted by the sight of a man he hadn't seen in almost ten years, though he wasn't all that surprised to find him in his hotel room.

The agency was, after all, incredibly stealthy.

"I'm surprised it took you this long," said John, placing his briefcase on a nearby armchair and shrugging his coat off.

"Well, we spent quite some time figuring out the best course of action to take," the man said with a light smile. "It's good to see you again, John." He extended his hand, which John shook. "Let's talk."

* * *

Gail pressed the sleep button on her phone to silence John's third consecutive call. When she looked up she saw Beca eyeing her curiously. "You sure you don't want to answer that?" she asked. "I can wait."

Gail shook her head. "This is more important. Are you sure you've created a long enough distraction for Charlene?"

"Hell, yeah. No Aubrey, plus some homemade slime, plus everyone's clothes sticking to the walls equal Bumper up against a _lot_ of angry mutants," chuckled Beca. "I'm sure the all-out war that is about to happen upstairs will keep Charlene busy for a good couple of hours."

Gail laughed. "Mutants?" she asked knowingly.

Beca shrugged. "Might as well get used to it. It's pretty accurate, anyway."

"And you're _sure_ you want to do this? I hope what I said last night didn't—"

"It did affect my decision, but not in a bad way," said Beca sincerely. "I was still in denial for a _long_ time after you told me. In my head, it both made and _didn't_ make sense that Chloe is someone special to me. But… that shouldn't matter, right? I said I would save her even if I had no memories of her, and I would still save her even if I didn't know she was my girlfriend." The word rolled off Beca's tongue with far less bumps than it did the previous night.

Gail shifted her weight awkwardly. "So you're… H-How do you feel about it?"

Beca took a deep breath. "I don't know yet," she said honestly. "I wish you'd told me sooner, though. Some part of me feels guilty now for not thinking about her more often. But a bigger part of me is feels guilty that I might have been leading Chloe on the whole time, and it kinda scares me."

"Is there some other part that believes you really were in love?" Gail asked hopefully.

"No offense, Gail, but my generation isn't wired to _fall in love_ ," Beca replied with a sad smirk. "At least not at this stage of our lives. We succumb to attraction and seek only pleasure. Then when we're tired of the game, pick the most tolerable or dependable player, and retire."

"And you say you're not dramatic."

"I call 'em like I see 'em, Gail."

They shared a chuckle and turned back to the matter at hand. "Are you sure about going in alone, though?" asked Gail, her voice full of concern.

"Honestly? I think I prefer it. It's easier if I only have to worry about myself. I'll be avoiding the Heartless as best as I can and going straight to the end anyway," Beca assured, and then pointed at the protective vest she had on. "This thing is guaranteed to ward off internal darkness for about two and half hours once activated, right?"

Gail nodded. That was the most AMG had been successful at producing since the team returned from the Realm a week ago.

Beca tapped the small backpack she had on. "And I have another here for Chloe. If I could carry her on piggyback then I can probably carry her in flight so… I think I'm all set."

They both stood inside the basement room where Beca would soon open the Corridor and make her way to the Realm of Darkness. She summoned the Keyblade and, as she had done countless times in the past, pointed it at the center of the room. A small rip formed and slowly began to split open, but unlike the ones from which Heartless emerge, Beca's Corridors were always a pleasant, ocean blue color.

Gail eyed Beca closely, only to see nothing but fierce determination on the girl's face. A part of her wanted to hold Beca back and say that it was too dangerous—because it truly was; though the plan was simple and theoretically doable, so many things could go wrong. And without the safety of numbers, Beca would be left to deal with it on her own. But another part of Gail—the part that was winning the moral battle—was giving her an ominous feeling that this was their last chance.

Beca, on the other hand, was feeling oddly calm. _I'm the one who can keep the light on,_ she had told herself over and over again, while mulling over her decision earlier that morning. If she had been given the Keyblade to save Chloe the first time, then not only was Beca meant to do it again and again for as long as she lived, but more importantly, and regardless of Beca's true feelings for her, Chloe was someone to be treasured.

"Chloe... I'm coming for ya," she whispered. After a quick nod to Gail, Beca shifted her weight forward and flew straight into the Corridor.

* * *

With strands of her golden hair whipping around her face from the blowback of Beca's departure, Gail watched the tiny brunette disappear into the blue and let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding. She hoped Beca would only take a few hours. She calculated in her head that flying at an optimistic sixty-seven miles per hour would get Beca to the end of the Realm in about an hour and a half, and with Chloe on her back her return speed would probably be reduced to—

" _Ow!_ "

Gail's head snapped back to look at the Corridor's entrance, from where Beca suddenly shot out, flying backwards, until she landed without grace and skidded on the white tiled floor. Gail had moved quickly to help her up that she didn't notice the other four figures emerge from the Corridor after Beca.

"Sorry. I didn't see you there," came an unfamiliar female voice that sounded distinctly European. "You were so tiny. I thought you were a bug."

"Or like a little mouse," added another foreign, but male, voice. "Like, um, how do you say… Mäuschen?"

"You just said it," a second man, definitely American, grumbled. He followed it up with, "idiot."

"Oh, no! Did you hit someone?" a younger, much sweeter voice asked worriedly.

Beca and Gail raised their heads at the same time. The first thing to catch Beca's attention were wide eyes, so strikingly blue they almost seemed unreal, sticking out from behind a towering figure. Her gaze then traveled up the all-black-clad giant of a woman, whose sleek blonde hair tied in an immaculate bun, wearing an intimidating smirk.

Gail scanned each of the newcomers' faces for a microsecond before her eyes landed on the man on the far right, who was busy smacking dust off the sleeve of his tuxedo, much to the amusement of the taller, darker-haired man beside him. Her heart leapt to her throat at the same moment her stomach dropped, leaving her in quite a numbing daze.

And just like that, Chloe _and_ Jack were safe and sound, right in front of their eyes.

* * *

 **Response to reviews:**

 **xcombixgirlx** (Oct. 13) - Haha! Bumper has his moments, I guess. I think this is the point in the story where the X-Men influence is most felt, because they'd have to adapt to, or go against, society. And yeah! Contrary to what I wrote (LOL), I _do_ wish Beca could just remember! But the heart is a complicated system in itself... you'll see for yourself in the next chapter. :)

 **Guest** (Oct. 13) - Daaaaamn right it's going down! It's about time these kids learn what justice and freedom in the United States _really_ mean. Haha.

 **Guest** (Oct. 14) - Thanks! It was fun to make up their flaws haha. By the way, you must have psychic powers or something because I _had_ scheduled those two Germans to appear at the very end of this chapter! (I wrote it about a month ago haha.) Please see **A/N** for comment on who revealed their powers.

 **Maggie** (Oct. 14) - Thank you, Maggie! It's always great to hear from you. :) Please see **A/N** for comment on who revealed their powers.

 **twin192** (Oct. 16) - Well, I'm glad you decided to give this story a chance; otherwise, I wouldn't have received such kind words from you. :) I don't mind that few people read it, honestly, writing is a pleasure in itself! But I do love it when people take the time to appreciate it so a million thank you's from me! :) Character development is, like, my religion haha so I guess you should trust your gut when it comes these characters. Please see **A/N** for a comment on Chloe.

* * *

 **A/N:** (On the YouTube downloader) You may think it's silly–or that I was too lazy to come up with a new antagonist for the team–but downloading YouTube videos is actually something my best friend does (to my great amusement) so he can watch them over and over from wherever, and it proved useful when a trailer leaked a few months back (I think it was for X-Men, coincidentally) and was taken down. I got to see it thanks to my friend haha.

I'd also like to apologize for Chloe's absence in the past few chapters. Although life in the Dark Margin isn't exactly exciting, you'll get to see what she'd been up to in the next chapter.


	15. Angst

**A/N** : I love how you guys leave reviews that perfectly set up the next chapter haha. But I felt like this needed a pre-story note because a (possibly psychic) Guest reviewer mentioned angst for the first time, which was a concept I had planned to introduce in this chapter. But don't worry! It's not _that_ kind of angst.

So, dear readers, allow me to introduce you to Heideggerian angst. (For the philosophically-inclined readers, I hope I didn't ruin your day.) And because I need a more interesting way to say it:

while (grateful) {

printf("Thank you so much for reading!\n");

if (reader == annoyed) {

break;

}

}

* * *

 **Chapter Fifteen: Angst**

Jack approached the moonlit shore, where Chloe was sitting with her head resting dejectedly on her knees. She didn't take it very well that she no longer had the powers that got her into so much trouble.

At first, she was surprised; after all, it only made sense that if she retained all her memories, then she should have also retained her powers. Having assumed that, she was hit by a sense of loss, which was quickly erased when she remembered that it had been ten years since she had even moved anything with her mind (not counting her Heartless' experience, and she didn't). So, without much memories of having her powers, it didn't feel like much of a loss after all.

Instead, Chloe thought she'd feel more relieved that she could finally carry on being "normal." But normalcy came with a painful realization that she was, by its very definition, not special. And not being special meant not having a place Barden, where Beca was.

It only made her think about what it could have been like had she been revived at the same spot instead of inside the Dark Margin. She would have gone back to the Institute, by day, taking classes at Barden University with Beca and the others; by night, learning and developing her powers in training simulations. It would have been like being part of a family. And as much as she loved her future foster family and their cozy home in Westchester, living at Barden would just be more… _fun_.

"I know you're upset," sighed Jack as he lowered himself onto the sand beside Chloe. "But look on the bright side—no one's ever going to go after you now. You're safe from all and future crazy scientists who'd want to study and exploit you."

Chloe looked up miserably, reminded of yet another reason she was devastated by the loss. "How can you say that? My powers could have _helped_ people, you believed so yourself ten years ago! It was only a matter of my consent," she mumbled into her forearm when she slumped back into her dejected position.

"It was never your responsibility to offer yourself up for science," Jack said firmly. "I'm sorry if what we did made you think that it was."

Chloe shook her head. "I think I'm lucid enough to know that the Project had good intentions… If things were different I would have said yes."

Jack struggled to think of something comforting to say. He hadn't expected Chloe to be so on board with the vision he and his colleagues had, and he couldn't deny that the promise still excited him. But if only they had waited a few years for Chloe to grow up and understand its implications on her own, then she never would have gotten hurt…

Jack blinked. Tilting his head to the side, he looked at Chloe curiously. "I wonder," he muttered.

"Hmm?"

"Can you try again?"

Chloe frowned. "What? You mean try my powers?"

Jack got up and brushed sand off his pants before moving up the coast to gather some stones. Chloe followed him with her eyes and saw him drop a pile of them at his feet and bend over to grab a handful. "Get up!" he called to her. Chloe started making her way to him, and he stopped her when there was about fifteen feet between them. "I'm going to try throwing the rocks at you, and you try moving them away, okay?"

Chloe gave him a "why not" shrug and held out her palms.

"I'll start off with an easy one," said Jack, underhand-tossing a flat piece of rock. It flew through the air in a slow arc. Chloe imagined swatting the rock to the side—physically motioning such action with her hand—but nothing happened. It plopped down on the sand a few inches before her with a fitting _thud_.

"It doesn't work, Jack, not even when things are in motion. Let's just give up," she sighed, flailing her arms to the sides.

"After just _one_ try? Come on. Faster this time!"

The next throw was indeed much faster, but still easy for Chloe to track with her eyes. The one after that was even faster still, and caught Chloe off guard so she ended up instinctively catching it with her fist. "Oh, well. Third time's the charm—or rather, _not_ the ch—hey, wait!"

Chloe had glanced up to see Jack winding up like pitcher and the next thing she knew, a rock was flying past her head. "Jack!" she scolded, but the man was already gearing up to throw the next one. For a fleeting second, Chloe thought she had an idea of what Jack was trying to do—but it was very difficult to concentrate when rocks were flying at your head.

She covered her face with her arms and, though she wasn't actually being gravely injured by the rocks, continued to yell at Jack until a certain point when she was no longer conscious of the fact that it was Jack throwing the rocks, or that they were merely rocks. The desire to make it stop grew to an overwhelming amount. It wasn't that she was afraid of the rocks. On a deeper level of her consciousness, she was more afraid of the fact that it was out of her control that they were hitting her.

But she had no reason to be afraid. The rocks weren't actually hurting her. She realized that they would only hurt if she continued to let them hurt her; in other words, _she_ got to decide if it hurt or not.

When Jack finally stopped pelting her with rocks, Chloe took a moment to calm her breathing before lowering her arms to glare angrily at her so-called father figure. But her vision was distracted by the sight of three or four rocks hovering in mid-air. She gasped in surprise and the rocks fell to the ground as though an invisible hand had let go of them. Her focus shifted back to Jack, who was raising his arms triumphantly.

"You did it!" he cheered, kicking up sand as he rushed to get to her. "I should have realized it sooner. You—not your Heartless, but _you_ yourself—have never been able to control your powers, so _of course_ you couldn't do it at will."

Chloe, who was still speechless, simply nodded along.

"But given that you've matured, we can't expect them to come in random bursts like they did when you were ten," Jack continued to explain. "And, similar to our predicament ten years ago, the only way to get you to use your powers again is by _triggering_ a strong emotional response, like perhaps anger. But of course, that comes with its own problems—"

Chloe shook her head. "It wasn't anger this time. I wasn't… It wasn't just simple anger." Jack noted her thoughtful expression and waited patiently for her to process what had happened. "It felt more like _distress_ , you know?" she said, looking up with a frown. "I was super annoyed and also _anxious_ , but I didn't know what for. It wasn't because of you throwing the rocks at me—although I did not enjoy that _at all_ ," she added with a scowl.

Jack raised his hands in apology. "Sorry about that. But then what triggered it? If not the rocks?"

"I really can't explain it," said Chloe, after a brief and thoughtful pause. Then she shrugged. "But does it matter though? Do you really think I can only use my powers if I channel that emotion again?"

"At this point, yes," he shrugged. "With training, I'd like to think you'd be able to do it at will. But in order to train it, first you'd actually need to _do_ it. And right now, we only know one way of doing that."

"Well, that sucks," pouted Chloe. "I'd be completely unreliable in a mission then. Like, what if I'm not stressed enough when—"

"Whoa, whoa. Who said you're going on any of John's missions, young lady?" Jack interrupted sharply. "Chloe, you don't owe him anything. You aren't a part of his little group—"

"Excuse _you_ , my girlfriend is in that group, and I intend to fight alongside her," Chloe answered back stubbornly. Jack opened his mouth but Chloe second-guessed what he had to say and cut him off. "Look, I know you feel protective of me and, really, I'm grateful for that, but I also want to explore this part of my life, okay?" She looked back toward the coast. "When I thought I had lost my powers, I was upset because I thought I lost something that made me special. I love that you're willing to open your home to me, but I've made a decision.

"When we get out of here, I want to stay at Barden and find out what I'm really capable of. It's _my turn_ to decide what to use my powers for. I'm pretty sure you would agree, once you've seen it, that I shouldn't settle for anything less noble than what Beca and the others are doing."

* * *

The next few hours (or days, or weeks—they had lost the ability to intuit time) were spent trying to get Chloe to channel that particular emotion again. They had also silently agreed to move on from their argument, since it wasn't an issue they were immediately facing anyway. Jack would have plenty of time to protect Chloe from John once they were out of the Dark Margin, while Chloe was certain that Jack would see it her way once he met her friends.

In either case, putting Chloe's training first was a good distraction from the fact that they were basically just waiting to be rescued by Beca, who may or may not even know where they were or how to get there. But the two remained optimistic that she would come, and they chose to do something more productive with their seemingly infinite time by working on Chloe's powers. At the moment, Chloe was explaining for the nth time what she was feeling the moment before her powers must have reactivated.

"No, it was more like a kind of ache."

"So, it was a one time thing? Like a throb?"

"Yeah—no." Chloe shook her head. "It stayed for a while. Like a dull _ache_ ," she repeated.

Jack leaned back on his elbows and hummed. "Is it like imagining a three-legged puppy?"

Chloe's face crumpled in anguish. "Jack, that's horrible!" Then she paused. "But no, that wasn't the feeling."

"Was it more intense or less intense?"

"Hmm… a little both?"

Jack scratched his head. "What's the closest feeling you can associate it to?"

"I already told you—distress."

"But you don't seem very distressed about the things I'm telling you," said Jack, waving his hand helplessly.

"Because those weren't enough to make me anxious. I was distressed about something _else_."

"Well, what was it?"

"I don't _know_ ," groaned Chloe, digging her bare feet into the sand in frustration. "I just know that whatever it was I was stressing about was something I _shouldn't_ be stressing about because it was so pointless anyway! Like your stupid rock throwing!"

Jack sighed and muttered, "I thought I'd passed the pubescent moodiness by now."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing," he said hastily.

"No, seriously." Chloe sat up straighter wearing a thoughtful expression. "I skipped puberty, right? Don't I have like a hormone imbalance or something because of that? Maybe I'm just delayed."

Jack shook his head. "I'm pretty sure you went through the _biological_ aspects of puberty just fine. Even if you were under the memory modifications, your body still would have continued its normal, er, development…" He trailed off, not really wanting to discuss the biological "changes" with Chloe.

"Oh." Chloe slumped her shoulders. "Well, what else about being a teenager did I miss?"

As he settled back into a comfortable sitting position, Jack allowed himself to smile. "Well, we belong to different generations but I suppose every teenager gets into their own phase. I grew up in the late seventies so you can imagine what influences I had," he reminisced happily. "Oh, but every teenager goes through the perpetually grumpy phase, believe me."

Chloe laughed. "What could you possibly be so mad about at that age anyway?"

" _Everything_ ," he answered with emphasis. "And absolutely _nothing_."

Chloe frowned at the paradoxical statement. "What?"

"It's simpler than you think. As a teenager, you just feel like there's so much pressure all the time—from school, your friends, your parents. It's not specific to any age group, of course, but it's during adolescence that one begins to experience, and be personally afflicted by, this pressure," explained Jack. "But every time I'd get angry or upset about it and lock myself in my room, I'd start thinking. In reality, the pressure didn't mean anything; it was just in my head. When you _really_ think about it, it's just what other people think of you, and what other people _want_ you to think is important—which, really, is just nothing of importance.

"And you go down that line of thinking until you realize that, suddenly, _everything_ is _nothing._ Everything you thought you cared about—your grades, your popularity, your wealth—they don't mean anything to _you_ , but they mean everything to everyone else. They are merely the basis on which people have decided to compare each other. And now you're angry at the whole idea, because why the hell are you stressing about something that doesn't even _matter_ to you? And then you end up just wondering what the point of living a life is if all you cared about is what others think…"

Jack cleared his throat, realizing that he had been going off on a rant. "Sorry, I got lost in—"

He had turned to face Chloe and found her hovering a few inches above the sand, and the rocks that were naturally discarded around them were levitating as well. Chloe herself seemed stunned; her lips were parted and her eyes wide and unseeing. It lasted for two more seconds after Jack stopped talking before Chloe (and the rocks) returned back to the ground with a soft landing.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked worriedly, turning her to face him to try to get her eyes to focus.

Chloe blinked and swallowed. "Y-Yeah... I—I think that was it, Jack. Everything you said. That—that was the feeling."

"Angst?" Jack asked distractedly, busy checking Chloe's pulse for irregularities in her heart rate, which used to happen when she was young. He was surprised and pleased to find that she was perfectly fine, because it meant that she had succeeded, for the first time, in using her powers correctly.

"I felt like I had to be detached from everything," she said, sounding firmer and more determined. "A while ago, the rocks you were throwing at me, somehow they reminded me of my dad and the experiment. I was being hurt because of something that others wanted me to be—my dad didn't want me to be a mutant, but you and Gail and everyone at the lab did. I'm not mad at you for that," she added quickly, seeing the guilty look on Jack's face. "But the rocks stirred the same feelings in me. I was being hurt and there was nothing I could do. But the only reason I was hurt was because I was letting them hurt me. It was like what you said about pressure—it meant everything to them but nothing to me. It forced me to think about what _I_ really wanted."

Chloe ran a hand through her hair. "What I realized was… scary," she admitted. "The only way I could get to that feeling is if I'm indifferent to everything around me; to be at a point where only _I_ exist, where everything else is, well, meaningless… I stopped caring about whether or not I had powers. I forgot about you being beside me, about everything that had happened, where I was and how I got here. And when I cleared my mind, I was free. Detached from the world, I saw that I—I could control _everything_."

There was a long moment of silence during which they thought about what was just said. It now made sense to Jack why Chloe had to stop after only a few seconds. It wasn't easy to completely detach yourself from the world around you, and to achieve that he imagined that one would have to be purely _apathetic_ , which he was certain Chloe found difficult to be. It also made sense why Chloe's younger self had very easily lost control all those years ago; having lost everything that she valued, the nothingness was never clearer to her than in those moments. In that state, murder would have lost its relative moral weight.

Chloe was thinking along the same lines. "Tell me, honestly, does that make me sound like a sociopath?"

"No," Jack insisted emphatically, wrapping an arm around Chloe's shoulder. "If it were any other person, I'd be terrified—but you? A sociopath? Nah."

Chloe elbowed him lightly in the ribs. "I'm serious! This kind of thinking—it's not what Beca or any of the others do, I'm sure of it."

He heaved a sigh. "Well, I can't say I know what it's like to have powers, but in whatever case it's never ideal to have to stop caring about things just to use your them. But who knows? Maybe with practice you'll be able to compartmentalize and keep yourself grounded while using your powers."

"But until then…"

"Until then, maybe try not to kill me while practicing—"

"Oh, God," Chloe groaned into her palm.

"I'm just kidding!"

* * *

It turned out that Chloe did not have to worry that much about hurting Jack with her powers—at least not yet. After plenty of coaxing and coaching from Jack, she agreed to once again attempt to enter that mental state, only because he had convinced her that pulling her out of it was as simple as giving her a shake on the shoulder.

Over time, she eventually learned stay there for a few seconds longer without doing anything. Though her early attempts had been foiled by the fear of hurting Jack, she soon began to understand that it was different kind of being out of control from the one she experienced ten years ago. Violence was not in her true nature, so even while indifferent to everything, she found that she would never actually hurt anyone.

But even after getting through that roadblock, her succeeding attempts at moving objects with her mind were then foiled by her own excitement. A few seconds after Chloe successfully moved anything, she couldn't help but think of _what_ she was doing and how easily reality seemed to bend for her. And the moment she thought about that, whatever she was trying to move was given meaning, and her control over it slipped. So Jack advised her to keep practicing until the novelty wore off, which she did. Thus, all she had achieved since discovering the right trigger was to not get too excited about her ability. And, ironically, she was excited about that achievement.

They were currently standing with their pants folded up until just below their knees, skimming stones across the ocean's calm, moonlit surface. Chloe insisted on taking plenty of long breaks between practices so that she could shake off the feeling of indifference, despite Jack's hypothesis that that would actually be disadvantageous to her progress.

"Oh, look, that one went really far!" Chloe cheered happily, pointing at the ripples in the surface of the water that continued toward the horizon. While Jack turned back to the shore to gather more stones, she kept her eyes on the water, waiting for the ripples to fade.

But they didn't. If anything, they got bigger and bigger until—

"What the hell…?"

Chloe stepped deeper into the ocean, causing the gentle waves to slosh against her folded jeans. She knew from personal experience that there was nothing to reach by swimming farther out, so she wondered what could possibly be _moving_ in the water. She squinted her eyes and finally saw two dark figures swimming toward them. Her heart raced and she quickly called out to Jack, who hurried to her side to pull her back up to dry land.

The two swimmers reached the shallow part of the shore at the same time and waded through the water with finesse. They were even panting as they made their way slowly and determinedly toward Chloe and Jack. Whether they had gotten themselves trapped in the Dark Margin, too, or if they were there specifically to see them, Chloe couldn't be bothered to wonder; she was too busy taking in the appearances of the new arrivals.

With the moon now lighting their faces, Chloe realized that the one on the left was a woman. She stood tall and graceful with her golden blonde hair tied in a neat bun that didn't seem affected at all by the swim, and neither did her completely dry black, button down blouse with mesh sleeves. Her companion, who stood slightly behind and to her side, was a towering man, even taller than Jack, and had short black hair, dark, piercing eyes, and angular features. He, too, was wearing a mesh-sleeved shirt.

While Chloe pondered their unique style choices, Jack stepped forward and protectively moved Chloe further behind him. But he didn't say a word, preferring the strangers introduce themselves first.

The woman held her hand out to the side and, automatically, the man pulled a towel seemingly out of nowhere and handed it to her. She dabbed at her neck pompously as she smiled down at them. Chloe didn't think the smile was a friendly one so she did not feel comforted by the gesture.

"Hello. We are here to save you," she said bluntly with a small, insincere bow. Chloe detected a foreign accent, possibly German, and continued to eye the two warily. They seemed very smug about 'saving' them.

"And who exactly are you?" Jack asked suspiciously.

"I am Pieter," the man answered in a similar accent before gesturing at the woman. "And you may call her Kommissar."

"Do you know who we are?"

Pieter scoffed. "No," he said derisively. "We just follow the orders."

"You were _ordered_ to save us?" Jack narrowed his eyes. "By whom?"

"And how did you get here?" added Chloe, confused as to how they were able to reach the Dark Margin by swimming when she herself got nowhere doing so in the opposite direction.

The sound of Chloe's voice from behind Jack caught Kommissar's attention, and her smile widened and she looked down at the redhead. "Well, aren't you a little teddy bear," she said with a patronizing tilt of her head.

Chloe opened and closed her mouth in confusion. She wasn't sure how she should take that comment but, nevertheless, she shrank under Kommissar's gaze and was thankful for Pieter stepping in with an answer.

"A man called the Professor gave the order," he said. "And we came from the water, did you not see?"

Chloe and Jack exchanged surprised looks. If the Professor was sending these two, what happened to Beca and Gail?

"You were staring at us the entire time," frowned Pieter, genuinely confused. "Did you not see? Are you blind—?"

"That is not what the girl is asking," Kommissar informed her colleague, reading Chloe's expression. "She wants to know how we got to this world."

Pieter made a face that seemed to say, _Isn't it obvious?_

"You Americans think the universe revolves around you," smirked Kommissar, finally looking away from Chloe and giving her relief. "We, too, are well-versed in the darkness."

 _Based on their choice of outfits and heavy eyeliner, I'd say they_ love _the darkness_ , mused Chloe.

"Let us go _."_

Disregarding Kommissar's order, Chloe and Jack had a silent conversation to decide whether they should trust these two strangers. They were both thinking the same thing: even if they shouldn't, it would be stupid of them not to at least try to leave the Dark Margin. Jack gave a small nod and put his hand on Chloe's shoulder.

"Very well. Lead the way," he told the two.

At once, Kommissar turned and started walking back toward the sea. Pieter allowed Chloe and Jack to walk ahead of him so that he brought up the rear. Chloe jogged a little faster to walk abreast with Kommissar, ignoring Jack's warning look. "W-was there anyone with the Professor when he gave the order?" she asked the tall woman tentatively.

"We did not meet the Professor. We only received the order. We don't ask questions," Kommissar answered in short sentences, keeping her head straight as they walked deeper into the ocean.

Chloe nodded silently and slowed her pace dejectedly. Could it be that Beca and the others got seriously hurt on their way? Was that why the Professor had sent Kommissar and Pieter instead? Before Chloe could come up with a million other reasons to worry, however, she nearly walked into Kommissar's chest. "Sorry—"

"Go down."

Chloe's head snapped up to see Kommissar looking down at her once again. "I'm sorry?"

Kommissar pointed to the water behind her, the corner of her mouth twitching. They had stopped right where the water reached just above their waists.

"Oh, right," giggled Chloe. "Um, I don't know, I haven't—wait, you mean that all this time I was supposed to _dive_ into the water?"

"Yes. Did you think swimming would get you out?" the blonde asked amusedly. It was the first time Chloe had seen her display an emotion that wasn't condescending—at least, she didn't think it was.

She gave Kommissar an embarrassed smile. "Uh, yeah. I guess I should have checked what was underwater first, huh?"

"So, can you go down?" repeated Kommissar, turning back around to continue walking.

"Um, I think so. Maybe?"

Kommissar took Chloe's lack of confidence as a negative and said, "Hold on to me when we are underwater. But for now, we keep going."

The four of them went further into the water and swam until the distance between them and the shore stopped lengthening. This was the point where Chloe had realized that she wasn't escaping the Dark Margin. The extremely fit Germans paused to give Chloe and Jack time to catch their breaths while they kept afloat.

"Ready?" Kommissar asked Chloe, who nodded. She swam closer to the redhead and turned her back to her. "Put your legs around my waist."

"O-okay." Chloe did as she was told, wrapping her legs awkwardly around the woman's slim but firm waist, and connected her arms around Kommissar's shoulders. Pieter made a motion to offer Jack a piggyback ride as well, and received a death glare from the man in response. Chloe let out another giggle and subconsciously wrapped herself tighter around Kommissar. Unlike Jack's, her apprehension had quickly dissolved since meeting Kommissar and Pieter; she sensed that, condescending as they were, they were trustworthy.

"How long do we have to hold our breaths?" she asked.

"Thirty seconds," replied Kommissar. "I will do this," she tapped Chloe's arm with her finger, "when breathing is okay."

After taking in a huge breath of air, Kommissar, Pieter, and Jack began swimming downwards, with Chloe clinging tightly onto Kommissar. When they first submerged, Chloe was afraid to open her eyes underwater, but she later figured that it was better than imagining what was happening. Her eyes opened to nearly complete darkness and she briefly wondered how deep they were if the moonlight couldn't even reach them anymore. Just when her heart started beating faster at the thought of running out of oxygen, a faint light at the bottom started getting brighter.

Kommissar stopped kicking her legs and tapped Chloe's arm. The redhead gasped for breath and blinked her eyes. They were no longer surrounded by water, but they were still suspended in an underwater-like dimension.

"You can let go," said Kommissar, her voice clear and quiet, as though they were alone in an empty world.

"Let yourself fall," Pieter advised, and to her left Chloe saw Jack visibly relax his body. She relaxed hers as well, and felt a weak force pulling her down very slowly.

They seemed to be gravitating toward a bright circle a few dozen yards below them, and the closer they got, the more Chloe found herself interested in its colorful design. "Hey, that's me!" she exclaimed, pointing down. "I think," she added, tilting her head to side, trying to see the image upside down.

As they approached the bright circle, Chloe saw that it was actually a stained glass floor atop an impossibly tall tower. The larger image, found at the center of the circle, was of two women—a brunette and a redhead—facing each toward other but upside down. Framing them were smaller, circular portraits of other people.

"That's me and Beca, isn't it?" she wondered aloud. But since none of the people with her had any idea what Beca looked like, they couldn't answer. Stained glass forms of art aren't a realistic depiction, but to Chloe it was obvious; Beca's sapphire blue eyes and her own cornflower blue ones were proof enough that she was right. The circular portraits of their friends also helped, as she could easily see Aubrey, Luke, Jesse, Stacie, and Cynthia Rose in their stained glass forms.

"What is this place?" she asked in wonder. When their feet finally touched the ground, Chloe knelt and touched the floor. This place felt familiar and… _unique_ to her. She looked around at her companions. Kommissar and Pieter were standing at attention, waiting for Chloe to finish her sightseeing. Jack was walking around the circle slowly, frowning at the ground.

"Jack?" called Chloe. "Do you think she looks like me?"

Jack met Chloe's eyes for an instant before scanning the platform again. "I don't think we're seeing the same thing, Chloe."

"What do you mean?"

"I see… milestones," he murmured. He pointed to where Jesse's face was. "My graduation," he said, then pointed to Cynthia Rose's portrait. "My wedding."

"We took what is called a Dive to the Heart," explained Pieter, his arms crossed behind him. "It is a different picture for everyone."

Chloe rose to her feet. Seeing a semblance of Beca made her more eager to get back to her. The Dive to the Heart seemed to have a similar effect on Jack, who looked up and asked, "Where to next?"

"The stairs." Pieter pointed to the edge of the platform, where rectangular slabs of stained glass suddenly materialized to form a shallow staircase that disappeared into the darkness around them. As they climbed up the stairs, the steps behind them vanished while new ones appeared ahead. They kept following the path until they began to see a white door in the distance. As they drew nearer, they realized that the double doors were actually giants at over a hundred feet tall.

"Is that—?" Jack began.

"The Door to Darkness," answered Pieter in an impressive voice. "Many Heartless behind that door—yum, yum!"

Chloe's face paled and Kommissar noticed. "Don't worry, little teddy bear," she said. "We won't waste our time with them."

"But we do need to get through them," added Pieter. "So listen to the plan."

"Little bear and I—"

"Um, Chloe is fine," the redhead stuttered awkwardly. When Kommissar turned to her, she got flustered and added, "You know, so you don't have to keep saying 'little teddy bear' all the time…"

Kommissar's eyes looked to the corner thoughtfully, then she nodded in assent. "Chloe and I will fly above their heads. And since white American"—Jack scowled at his nickname—"feels too threatened to be carried by a woman"—Jack's scowl deepened at the assumption—"he will go with Pieter."

"And how exactly—?"

Pieter swiftly took off his shirt, revealing an upper body even more impressive than Luke's, and let out a grunt. His muscles suddenly bulged to twice their size, and then thrice, and continued to grow larger, simultaneously changing their physical composition. In a matter of seconds, Pieter had transformed himself into a ten-foot tall rock golem.

"Pieter the rock," muttered Jack. "How apropos."

The golem put his hand on the ground, palm up, and motioned Jack to hop on. Jack climbed up the rocky arm and perched carefully on the golem's shoulder. Once he was firmly in place, Pieter grew larger still until he was almost half the height of the Door to Darkness.

Kommissar took a step toward Chloe, who had titled her head backwards to marvel at Pieter's size. She appeared to hesitate before offering her hand to Chloe. "May I?" she said.

Chloe hid her surprise at the woman's politeness—reminding herself that first impressions weren't always right—and nodded. Without waiting for further permission, Kommissar swooped Chloe into her arms in a bridal carry.

"Whoa!" Chloe hooked her arms around Kommissar's neck once again as the woman shot into the air, giving Chloe that sinking-stomach feeling of ascending at a high speed. "Th-this is how we're flying?"

"I will not drop you," Kommissar said in a tone that conveyed confidence more than reassurance. Once they reached the height of Pieter's head, the rock golem pressed his palm against one of the white doors and pushed.

With a loud rumble, the door opened slowly to reveal the world beyond. Chloe's eyes widened at the expanse of gray rock and dark sky that was the Realm of Darkness.

* * *

"So… you have super strength _and_ super flight," said Chloe, trying to make small talk as they flew straight ahead.

Once Pieter had opened the Door, the surrounding Heartless began swarming toward the fresh new hearts, but it didn't seem to worry either of Chloe and Jack's escorts. The advantage of being over sixty feet in the air was that it drastically limited the number of Heartless that could attack them to only those that could fly. But even then Pieter in his rock golem form had virtually no problem swatting away the ones that flew too near them.

Kommissar acknowledged Chloe's question with a curt nod. Feeling discouraged, Chloe looked off in the distance and for the first time noticed bright white lights forming a wide path like a highway. Kommissar must have felt Chloe shift in her arms to take a closer look at the lights, which prompted the blonde to ask, "Are you uncomfortable?"

"No, no," Chloe assured, not entirely honestly. It felt weird to be cradled in another woman's ( _not_ Beca's) arms while flying through the air above hundreds of savage Heartless, but Kommissar didn't strike her as a very empathetic person, so Chloe let it slide. "Just wondering what those lights are."

Kommissar gave another one of her condescending smirks. "Evidence of your friends' bumbling ineptitude."

Chloe's heart and spirits soared. Unnecessary insult aside, Kommissar pretty much confirmed that Beca _had_ been looking for her. "Wait—is Beca's there right now?" she asked eagerly, grabbing the front of Kommissar's shirt in an attempt to steer her that way.

"It appears they have abandoned and failed their orders," said Kommissar. "That is why we were called. We are the best."

Chloe frowned in worry, but Kommissar's tone did not convey tragic news; she continued to hope that they weren't seriously hurt. Instead, she focused on what Kommissar had said. "The best at what exactly?"

Kommissar opened her mouth but then immediately pursed it. She looked at Chloe with a funny expression. "You ask… a lot of questions."

"You're an interesting woman," replied Chloe innocently. She thought she saw the corner of Kommissar's mouth twitch and took it as a victory. Maybe she _could_ get her to engage in small talk after all. "Or would you feel better if I started? I'm sure you'd want to know more about the people you've rescued—"

"We don't ask questions."

"Fine. _I'll_ ask the questions then, you just have to answer." And without waiting for her assent, Chloe began her interview.

She might have felt sorry for pummeling Kommissar with questions (both relevant and irrelevant) the whole way through the Realm of Darkness, if it weren't her way of controlling the excitement of seeing Beca again.

After successfully deducing from the way she spoke that Kommissar and Pieter were some sort of modern-day mercenaries, Chloe learned that there were people with special abilities outside the United States. Their presence in society, however, was even more obscure due to their few numbers, and in contrast they had little to fear from risk of exposure.

And despite her mantra of 'not asking questions' Kommissar was pretty open to answering most of Chloe's. Although, after asking about their origins, Chloe wasn't a hundred percent sure whether Kommissar was telling her the truth or just pulling her leg—but then the idea of that woman making a joke was less believable than her actual story. She really didn't mean to, but at some point after Kommissar began her origin story with a history lesson filled with unrecognizable German names and a mention of a rainbow bridge, Chloe fell asleep.

* * *

 **Response to reviews:**

 **xcombixgirlx** (Oct. 20) - :)

 **(Psychic) Guest** (Oct. 20) - Kommissar and Pieter's full story will be revealed later on, but this is pretty much how they got there haha. There won't be too much angst, I think...? You'll see for yourself in the next chapter.

 **(UPPERCASE) Guest** (Oct. 20) - OKAY, CALM DOWN, DON'T EXPLODE! HAHAHA. You can take a breather in this chapter, 'cause the reunion will be in the next chapter. You'll find out how Beca feels.

 **RoseLovesHighSchoolMusical** (Oct. 20) - I feel honored that you would leave one for this story. :) Feel free to ask questions! Although, I might not give you the answer if it counts as a spoiler. :D Oh, I'm excited for you to see how Staubrey turns out. And wow, thanks for the compliment! Haha. But it's basically a mash-up of Pitch Perfect, X-Men, and Kingdom Hearts, I don't think it's good enough (or legal, for that matter) to be a TV show or a movie.

 **Maggie** (Oct. 20) - Thought I've kept it purposely vague in this chapter, they can clearly traverse through worlds just like Beca. :)

 **TO ALL REVIEWERS:** Thank you so much for all your reviews! I love that you are all so engaged with the story! But please don't feel obligated to keep reviewing if you don't actually feel like you need to. Don't get me wrong, I really love them! But I don't want you to feel unnecessarily pressured. It's pretty much a theme in this chapter (and in angst) to do away with societal pressure so I can't be a hypocrite, can I?

* * *

 **A/N:** I couldn't resist inserting a little **Chlommissar** in there. :)The past three chapters have been quite lengthy (sorry) so I decided to cut this one short and just leave the focus on Chloe. The next chapter (The Reunion) will be up soon. I actually don't know how often you guys prefer I update... weekly? Bi-weekly?

 **If you're interested** in the 'inspiration' for Chloe's necessary condition, you can look up Martin Heidegger and angst on Google. It's a minor theme in Chloe's character development but, similar to the Kingdom Hearts franchise, you don't need to know it since I will probably end up butchering Heidegger's philosophy for my own benefit anyway haha. (Disclaimer: I am not a philosopher/scholar of philosophy. It was just a lesson that stuck with me. If _you_ are, though, I'd love to hear your thoughts on literally everything.)


	16. The Reunion

**Chapter Sixteen: The Reunion**

Beca took a deep breath and leaned forward, gracefully tiptoeing off into the air. She had just briefly crossed the entrance to the Corridor of Darkness and was about to enter the actual Realm when, all of a sudden, a forearm emerged out it and smacked her hard on the brow.

" _Ow!_ "

She could immediately tell from the pain of the impact and from what she had learned in her Physics class—which she now saw use for—that this person to whom the arm belonged was exiting at a much faster rate than she was entering. It also explained why Beca found herself uncontrollably flying backwards, all the way back through the Corridor and out once again into the real world.

Clutching her head in her hand, Beca tried to regain her bearings. A blurry version of Gail was at her side, helping her into a sitting position. Blinking away the white spots in her vision and ignoring the painful throbbing, Beca caught the ends of a conversation going on. Her impaired vision worked well enough for her to see that it was not just one person but quite a few people she had bumped into. (Although, she was certain it was just one arm that she had _literally_ bumped into.)

It pissed Beca off that they didn't seem at all apologetic for almost punching a hole through her head—well, none except for the last voice. Beca snapped her head up immediately when she heard its bright, sweet tone. Her eyes locked on to two shining orbs of blue—the shade of which she couldn't stop thinking about since seeing them in the old photo Gail handed to her the night before. Beca wanted to see more, but the rest of her was covered behind the body of the most intimidating woman ever known in the history of Beca's life. The condescending smirk on that woman's face was enough to tell Beca who had hit her.

It didn't help Beca's ego that she was leering at this woman from a pathetic position on the floor. So after scrambling to her feet, Beca opened her mouth to issue an empty threat but now, woozily standing upright, she was able to see the rest of the girl.

 _Holy shit._

Whatever breath Beca had gathered to make her threat left her lungs because standing before her was, in her opinion, quite literally a vision of perfe—

Before she even got to finish that thought, Beca was suddenly wrapped in a vacuum-tight hug so forceful that it pushed back down to the ground. A mop of copper red hair clouded her vision, and from their proximity she was able to inhale the pleasant smell of sea breeze combined with the sweet, nostalgic smell of a beloved childhood stuffed toy—

Interrupting her mental cataloguing of smells was the feeling of lips pecking kisses on every inch of exposed skin on her face in between gasps of "I missed you so much!" And though heat radiated and spread from those spots, it was surprisingly comfortable for Beca, who didn't see it as excessive or imposing, but rather an affectionate gesture that she found she didn't mind. So, when the redhead's lips moved from her forehead down to settle on her lips, it took a few seconds for Beca's conscience to kick in and pull back.

"Ch-Chloe—Chloe, wait," Beca breathed and gently pushed the girl off by the shoulders. She kept her eyes closed, her brain committed the kiss to long-term memory, since she knew that it was probably the last time she'd get to experience it. She was afraid that seeing at the gorgeous specimen on top of her would demolish every block of willpower she had built up to that point, but when Beca finally peeled her eyes open, however, she saw that Chloe, sitting upright, wasn't looking at her anymore, but at the two people embracing each other near the Corridor's entrance. She followed Chloe's gaze and saw Gail wrapped up in a man's arms, in particular, the man wearing a fancy suit.

"Aww," Chloe sighed, blinking back happy tears as she witnessed the couple reunited after over a decade apart.

Sniffling, Gail pulled away from her husband's arms and turned to Chloe with a huge smile on her face. But upon seeing the tiny (and still a bit dazed) brunette on the floor beneath Chloe, her smile slid off. "Fuck," she whispered quietly.

Beca threw the blonde a pointed look and cocked her head in Chloe's direction to get the woman to take responsibility for explaining their predicament. No way was Beca telling Chloe that they were… over? She quickly pushed down the rising protest coming from somewhere in her chest over that thought.

"Uh, Chloe?" Gail began hesitantly, squeezing her husband's arm for support. "There's a _slight_ problem. Beca—um, you see, your friends—or rather, no one really... remembers you. Well, they don't remember you but they _do_ know about you! ... Because we told them. But, uh," she looked frantically between Jack, who had his eyebrow raised, and Chloe, who just looked plain confused.

"They don't... remember me?"

"We believe that, when your Nobody disappeared, so did the memories it created in others' hearts. But since I knew you before your Nobody, I retained those memories," said Gail, more sure of herself when she was merely explaining the phenomenon. But then she arrived at her mistake. "We had to explain everything from the start but... there were _some_ things that I might have left out."

Chloe looked down at Beca, who was wearing a mixed expression, stunned and apprehensive, and then understood which 'things' were left out. Seeing the change in the redhead's expression triggered something in her and Beca opened her mouth to say… nothing. She only puffed her cheeks apologetically. The atmosphere became incredibly awkward and silent after that.

"I—I told Beca yesterday, though," Gail added quickly. "But, um, I guess you should talk to her about…" Jack put a hand on Gail's shoulder and shook his head, silently begging her to just stop talking, and she did.

Chloe was frowning at a spot beside Beca's head, her lips slightly pouted. "No offense, Gail," she said in an even tone, "but you really ought to work on you timing."

Beca couldn't stop the snort of laughter that escaped her. She had to agree with the redhead on that.

Chloe felt the shaking beneath her and let out a small chuckle herself. She missed Beca's laugh, and in their current situation it somehow felt like the only thing she had that connected her to Beca. She then bit her lip, subconsciously running her thumb over the slightly exposed skin of Beca's sides, and asked her softly, "So you don't remember… us?"

Beca shook her head slowly, ignoring the way her heart raced and goosebumps spread at Chloe's touch. She really wanted to say, "I wish I did," but reminded herself that she'd actually rather _not_ remember faking a relationship with her. It was bad enough that she seemed like a really nice person on top of being _that_ pretty. But saying anything at all to comfort Chloe was impossible at this point, because Beca was crippled by the fear that anything out of her mouth would pale in comparison to whatever poetic string of words someone who really deserved Chloe might say, so she simply shut up.

Chloe seemed to sense Beca trying to come up with something to say, and her shoulders sagged when the brunette failed, which only made Beca feel worse by the second. She had been insanely lucky, once upon a time, to have someone as ridiculously hot as Chloe—which was, forgive her, really all she could think of at that moment—all over her, _loving_ her, and thinking that she felt the same way. And not only had she been lying to Chloe the entire time, she also had the audacity to forget her. (She didn't have a choice, but that didn't matter to Beca's moral self-judgment.)

Just then, the other two people Chloe and Jack arrived with moved forward and broke the awkward silence. "This is boring," the man with dark eyes said. "I am bored now."

His female companion walked all the way to them and held out her hand to help Chloe up. "Our mission is complete," she said. "We would like to see the Professor now for our payment."

For whatever naïve reason, Beca expected the woman to help her up as well, but she received only a condescending smirk. It was only after _Chloe_ helped her to her feet and she was standing right next to the woman that she realized just how tall—and regretfully attractive—the blonde was.

 _What the hell is it about that in-between world that makes it spit out gorgeous women?_

"Um, Beca, this is Kommissar," Chloe introduced, the pointed to the dark-haired man. "And the guy over there is Pieter. Kommissar, this is the Beca I told you about."

"You? You are the supposed savior of Chloe?" sneered the woman called Kommissar, tilting her head down even further to look at Beca. "You are so tiny."

Beca, who was already feeling subliminally inferior to this towering woman, came up with the best comeback she could think of. "Oh, y-yeah? Well, you are—physically _flawless_."

Without missing a beat, Kommissar replied, "Thank you."

"But it doesn't mean I like you!" Beca added quickly after seeing the look on Chloe's face. She hadn't meant it to come out _that_ way. It was meant as her defense as to why Kommissar found it easier to rescue Chloe than she did. But, judging by the slightly insulted and hurt look on the redhead's face, it didn't really come out that way.

 _Way to go, you fucking idiot._

But Kommissar, who had turned to Pieter to say something in German, simply dismissed her comment as irrelevant. "We would like to see the Professor now," she repeated, addressing everyone in the room. "Also, my neck is starting to hurt from looking down at you," she added to the brunette in front of her.

 _Well, that was unnecessary_.

Even Chloe seemed to think so, too, because she put a warning hand on Kommissar's arm. Beca subconsciously scowled at the friendly contact. "The Professor isn't here," she said gruffly. "So maybe you should just leave."

"Where is he?" asked Pieter.

"He's in D.C.," someone answered from the door.

Beca turned her head in trepidation to find Charlene, hands on her hips, with dried-up fake (and real) slime and a few scorch marks all over her pantsuit. Her normally tidy black hair was out of place in some areas. She didn't look too angry, but Beca was quickly convinced otherwise when Charlene shot her a death glare on her way to Kommissar and Pieter.

"I am Charlene, the Professor's assistant," she greeted firmly, shaking their hands. "We spoke briefly about the mission. We didn't expect you to be back so soon—"

"Wait, what mission?" frowned Gail.

"After the team returned last week, the Professor called in these two, er, mercenaries," Charlene threw a cautious look at Kommissar and Pieter, as though checking if they were offended by the term, "to sort of… expedite the process."

"And when were you planning on telling us this?" Beca asked angrily. "After we'd unnecessarily risked our lives the second time?"

"Wait, what happened the _first_ time that made you go back?" Chloe asked, her voice full of concern. "Is everyone all right?"

"We're fine," answered Beca curtly. She didn't mean to sound dismissive toward Chloe, but she had a bone to pick with Charlene. "And how about the fact that there was _another_ way to get to Chloe, that my Keyblade wasn't needed after all? Were you planning on telling us _that_?"

"Oh, so, what, you were too busy _not_ remembering me to have time to care?" said Chloe, crossing her arms angrily. "It's nice to know what an _inconvenience_ I've been to you."

"No! Chloe, that's not what I meant!" insisted Beca, her panic over being misunderstood overcoming her fear of speaking to Chloe. "But if there was a faster way to get you home they should have done that the _second_ you were gone!"

"It wasn't that simple, Beca," argued Charlene. "These people don't just—"

"We don't accept just any order," finished Pieter. "We are not cheap whores, handing out services to just anybody."

"It took a while to reach an agreement with them," explained Charlene. "The Professor had to offer something incredibly valuable to get them to accept."

"What did John offer?" Jack asked at once. It was the first time Beca heard him speak since reentering the real world. His voice was deep and gravelly, and conveyed so much power that Beca got the sense that this man could command entire rooms with only his voice.

"That's between them and the Professor," answered Charlene, sounding a little scared for the first time since Beca had known her.

"You've _got_ to be kidding—"

"Did anyone hear me?" Pieter interrupted. "I said I was bored with this drama."

"We will be going now," said Kommissar. "The exit is this way, yes?"

"I want to see John, too," said Jack, following the Germans out the door.

"We can all take the AMG jet," added Gail, causing Jack to do a double take.

"AMG has a jet?" he frowned.

"Two, actually. But it's a long story, honey."

"Hey, wait! I'm going with you!" Chloe puffed out her chest. "I'm going to need you to explain this," she motioned between Beca and herself.

"I probably should come, too," sighed Charlene. "And you," she rounded on Beca angrily, "are you coming, or do you plan to cause another riot in the house while I'm gone?"

All eyes were suddenly on Beca, and it made her feel even more uncomfortable than she already was. She really _didn't_ want to go along with them to D.C., lest she prolong—or very possibly _worsen_ —the painfully awkward tension between her and Chloe. But Beca was beginning to realize that she was just as involved in this as any other person in the room.

"Of course she's coming," Jack answered on her behalf, fixing Beca with a steely glare and indirectly addressing her for the first time. "She and Chloe have a _lot_ to talk about."

Beca gulped.

* * *

The flight to Washington, D.C., was as awkward as Beca could have expected. After trudging into the cabin last to see that every seat except the one beside Chloe's was occupied, Beca mentally braced herself for the conversation she had semi-prepared for the night before. No matter what excuse she gave, however, Beca knew that her guilt would never truly be absolved, since she had also decided never, ever, to mention that she had only agreed to be in a relationship with Chloe the first time for the, ahem, physical benefits (a fact Beca believed was more true after seeing her).

Beca had planned to tell Chloe flat out that, while she was flattered to be chosen by the redhead (another fact that was more true after seeing her), in addition to the fact that she didn't even _remember_ her, relationships weren't exactly Beca's "thing," which was why it would probably be best if they just "broke up." Beca was even prepared to offer to be "friends first" and to "see where it would go from there" to make it easier on her.

She knew it was an extremely clichéd half-lie filled to the brim with the shittiest, most pathetic excuses but Beca assumed she had the advantage of Chloe missing out on ten years' worth of horrible romantic movies to know that. ( _Lucky for her_ , she added as an afterthought.)

At least… that was what Beca was _going_ to say, anyway.

It was an understatement to say that her resolve was debilitated upon actually meeting Chloe in person. Not only did an _actual_ Chloe Beale make her think about how she was an _actual_ jerk to an _actual_ person, but, as juvenile and shallow as it made her sound, Beca couldn't deny that Chloe was just really very _hot_. And Beca didn't even have to worry about whether or not Chloe had a decent personality. It was clear in the redhead's subtle actions and the way she interacted with people (even that blonde giant) that she was quite unlike anyone Beca had ever met or been attracted to.

Since their kiss, Beca's thoughts had more than once flitted dangerously toward the idea of just letting it happen—assuming, of course, that Chloe was still willing to—just because it seemed like a wasted opportunity if she ended a relationship with Chloe only to pine for her all over again.

But that was the very thing that was blocking her from doing that: the fact that it would be a _relationship_ —and worse, one where half its members was already _feeling_ the L-word. Getting into it would be as though Beca had skipped over the chapter in her life where she gets over her apprehensions and fears typical of someone from a broken family, which, despite what she had told Gail, were still in the way. And right now she just wasn't _there_ yet.

But then again, Beca didn't think she would mind if _Chloe_ were the one that got her there… Chloe definitely seemed 'relationship material.' But even so, Beca couldn't do that to her; she couldn't make her wait for Beca to feel ready. Beca wouldn't _let_ her wait because it only delayed the inevitable—

"So are we going to talk eventually, or are you trying to chew your tongue off so you won't have to talk at all?"

Beca was effectively snapped out of her thoughts, but she continued fiddling with her fingers nervously. "Sorry," she apologized. "It's just… It's a lot to think about, you know? I only just found out last night."

Chloe nodded and looked down at her own lap. "I don't mean to sound so full of myself but… is it really that much to think about? I mean, have you _seen_ me?"

Beca risked a side-glance at Chloe and saw that there was a humorous curve to Chloe's mouth that made her stomach flip. Chloe returned her glance and widened her smile, indicating that it was just a joke.

Beca let out a breathy chuckle and nodded. "Yeah, I have. And you're very…" She gestured up and down Chloe's body and just left it at that.

Chloe raised an eyebrow, her smile still in place.

"But this?" Beca gestured between the two of them. "I don't…" Then she simply pursed her lips and exhaled through her nose.

 _So much for rehearsing your speech last night._

"Okay," Chloe said slowly, when Beca said nothing more. She sat up straighter and decided to take charge of the conversation. "I'll just assume that Kommissar knocked out the speech part of your brain, and _that's_ why you're not really making any sense right now, so how about I be the one to talk first?"

Beca nodded eagerly. Her mind was a mess so it might be better to just build on what Chloe would say.

But when Chloe quickly observed her girlfriend—the way she wouldn't keep eye contact, the nervous tongue chewing, and her restless fingers—she sighed. Seeing Beca so uncomfortable and scared hurt more than it did to find out that she didn't remember her, and getting the answers she needed wasn't worth making Beca feel that way.

"You know what? It's okay," Chloe said softly. "We can talk another time, when you're ready."

Beca looked at her in surprise and gratitude, but then quickly realized that looking at her was a mistake, for seeing a Chloe Beale upset should be made illegal for having the effect of bending people's wills. Beca was starting to think she knew how she got into a relationship with this girl; there was simply nothing you wouldn't do to make her all bright and happy again. "Well… maybe you could just tell me how we started dating?" she offered. "I'm still kinda curious about that."

Chloe perked up happily. "Okay! Well, it happened at the abandoned mansion where Gail had been keeping me. You opened the door to my room and I like to think you fell for me the moment our eyes met—"

Beca made an involuntary noise that was between a laugh and a disbelieving snort. _What could be more cliché than love at first sight?_

"Hey, you wouldn't stop staring!" defended Chloe. "And you _told_ me that you couldn't stop thinking about me ever since you rescued me that night," she added smugly.

"I actually said that?" asked Beca, feeling annoyed at her past self.

" _Yes_ ," Chloe insisted. "Even Luke said so. You kept asking about me."

The mention of her friend's name reminded Beca that she wasn't the only one who had no recollection of a relationship with Chloe. She thought about how Chloe would feel when she reunited with her supposed friends and felt a wave of sympathy. "Okay… continue," she said in an attempt to be nicer to the redhead.

"Well, we couldn't see each other a lot for the first few weeks because of my memory sessions," Chloe recalled. "But whenever we did, you were always so sweet. You worried about me a lot and went out of your way to make me happy. For instance, I once told you about a childhood memory—it turned out to be fake, but still—and you _recreated_ it just to make me happy." Chloe smiled. "And you spent the whole time at a party just getting to know me, telling me about things I've missed, making me laugh—"

"Wait, what party?"

"The party after your first training simulation, I think."

"Oh, right… Yeah. I think I went to bed early that night." Beca shook her head. "I can't stand crowds."

"Well, what _really_ happened was that you stayed until the very end of it having fun with your friends," smirked Chloe. "And then you walked me to my room. I started dropping _all_ these hints but you were being so awkward…"

 _Well, at least that part sounds accurate_ , Beca thought.

"… and then we had our first kiss," Chloe said simply, biting her lip as she waited for Beca's reaction—surprise? Joy? Hopefully even remembrance?

"Yikes."

From the possible range of expressions Chloe could have gone on to list, Beca's odd mix of humorous disgust and criticism wasn't one of them. Chloe's spirit faltered but not her resolve; Beca had often expressed her distaste with cheesy romantic clichés when they were together anyway. Maybe she just preferred to have had their first kiss another way. So Chloe decided to keep going. " _Anyway_ , from then on we were sort of together—"

"What? Just after that _one_ kiss?" Beca asked incredulously. She knew she wasn't one to talk, having gone even further than a kiss after an initial meeting with a previous fling, but it was precisely that fact that made her wonder how Chloe could have ever believed they were in a real relationship.

"Well, you made it clear that you were attracted to me ever since we met—"

"But that was like, what, a _few weeks_?" reasoned Beca. It had taken Jesse _years_ for Beca to even consider him as a 'best' friend. "And don't tell me—a couple of weeks later, I said 'I love you,' didn't I?" Beca was only being half sarcastic, but she wanted to hear it from Chloe's own mouth.

"Yes. But didn't Gail already tell you?" Chloe frowned when Beca pinched the bridge of her nose at hearing her answer. "About how our hearts are connected and how we were practically meant to be together?"

 _Hearts? Meant to be? This is some weird fairy tale shit._

"Look, it just… doesn't seem like me at all." Beca shook her head. She had gained enough courage from incredulity at this point to finally say what she needed to say. "The only thing Gail told me about was the picture in my room. And whatever cutesy stuff I might have done with you? I have had the hardest time believing any of that. And it's not that I don't think you're beautiful—" she said quickly, "because, _God_ , I don't think I've ever seen anyone so... Well, anyway, it's not that. It's that I can't possibly be in this kind of relationship; I'm not that type, Chloe. Everything you've said so far about our relationship literally makes zero sense to me."

Chloe's frown deepened. "Then how do you explain what happened in those three months? I know how you feel about relationships, Becs, you told me yourself. But we worked through it together—that means you can and you _have_ worked through it already! What's so different about the Beca that _I_ remember and the Beca that _you_ remember?"

"Maybe that's exactly it!" said Beca fervently, suddenly getting a novel idea that might explain everything—and completely ignoring the warning bells ringing in her head. "What if they _were_ different? What if it wasn't really _me_ that time? What if something weird was going on, like some side effect of your memory therapy or whatever, and it affected me? So we were both thinking things that weren't real—like, imagine we were high for three months, then when you were gone, it wore off and I couldn't remember anything." Beca was only half-aware that she was rambling at this point. "You have telepathy, right? Maybe that helped mess up our memories, too. Like, you were subconsciously making me think things that—"

Beca stopped, finally realizing just what she was accusing Chloe of having done. Her stomach churned and she turned _very_ slowly to meet the redhead's murderous glare. "I'm _so_ sor—"

"No need to apologize. I can't fault you for being honest, can I?" Chloe said coldly, getting up and moving over to the seat beside Kommissar that Pieter had vacated on his way to the table of food at the back of the cabin.

Beca smacked herself on the forehead and sagged back into her seat.

 _So I guess being friends first is out of the question._

* * *

When Gail and Jack walked back into the main cabin minutes later after spending some alone time together in a more private area of the jet, they raised their eyebrows at the new seating arrangement. Beca was alone on the loveseat with her elbow propped on the armrest, her cheek resting on her knuckles while her other hand held up an ice bag to her brow. She was occasionally shooting dark looks toward the other end of the cabin, where Chloe was playing chess with Kommissar.

"Oh, wait! No, no, no, I change my mind!" cried Chloe, flapping her hands wildly.

"Ah-ah," tutted Kommissar, intercepting Chloe's hand as it approached the chess piece. "You cannot do that."

" _Please!_ " pouted Chloe.

Kommissar pretended to think about it. "Only because you are cute, Chlobear."

Gail and Jack heard a disgruntled "tch" coming from somewhere nearby and caught Beca rolling her eyes.

"Uh-oh," muttered Gail. Jack stepped forward to take the seat beside Beca but Gail stopped him. "I think it's too soon for you. Let me handle this."

Jack narrowed his eyes at Beca one more time before nodding and moving to the bar.

Gail sat down carefully beside Beca and gave her a knowing look. "What did you say?" she asked in a tone used for reprimanding children.

"What makes you think _I_ said something wrong?" Beca asked defensively.

"Because you're the one glaring at her jealously while Kommissar is the one making her laugh."

"I told her I didn't think I was the person she remembers," said Beca, choosing to ignore Gail's last comment. "And, oh, I accused her of using her powers to convince me to fall in love with her."

Gail blinked. " _Wow_."

"Yeah. Did you also forget to tell me that I was an asshole?"

"No, because you weren't an asshole back then. You are now, though. Kind of."

Beca shrugged in agreement and Gail frowned thoughtfully. "Didn't we tell you she didn't actually _have_ her powers when she was a Nobody?" she asked.

Beca turned away from the chess match to glare at Gail. "Do you think I would have said what I said if you did?"

"Huh. I guess that was our bad."

"Could you tell _her_ that?"

Gail let out a mirthless chuckle. "Oh, no, missy. This is still your fault."

"Figures."

Gail waited the appropriate amount of time before asking, "So what are you going to do to fix it?"

"I don't know. Do I have to?"

Gail turned her head in surprise. "Wait, are you telling me you guys are _over_?"

"Gail, in my head, we were never together—at least, not honestly," Beca said firmly. "And even if we did get back together now," she sighed and ran a hand through her hair, "I don't think I can live up to the person she thinks I was. That's just not me. And I don't want to make her wait just to find out that I can never be that person."

Gail couldn't argue with that. She didn't know much about Beca's life prior to her enrollment at the Barden Institute, so she wasn't aware just how much the young woman had difficulty conceptualizing being in a functional relationship. Gail understood why Beca had jumped on the idea that some outside force compelled her to fall in love with Chloe; it was the simpler explanation.

"By the way," continued Beca, "Chloe mentioned something about our hearts being connected, and that we were destined to be with each other or something. What was that all about?"

Gail hesitated to answer. Jack had filled her in on what Chloe had told Beca, and vice-versa, the moment before Beca released Chloe's soul and body from her Nobody. She personally hadn't heard the exchange of words that time Chloe's Nobody was released, but now she knew what their hearts being connected meant. But if Beca was not going to pursue Chloe, then Gail had to respect her decision. Whether or not it was in Beca's best interest not to know the true nature and origin of their relationship, Gail had meddled enough in their lives so she wasn't going to push Beca in any direction this time.

"I think that's something you and Chloe should talk about yourselves."

If Beca was surprised by Gail's sudden change, she didn't show it. She merely nodded, thinking that it was unlikely she would ever be able to talk to Chloe again at this point.

* * *

The car ride from the airport to the Professor's hotel was not as awkward as the one on the jet, but it was tremendously more physically uncomfortable for Beca.

Charlene had called the Professor's driver to pick them up and sat shotgun on the SUV while Chloe, Gail, and Jack took the first row of seats, leaving Beca squished between Kommissar and Pieter in the back seats. On any other day she would find it comical that two intimidating people were packed like sardines in the back of a car, but Beca was trying desperately not to lean into either of the two Germans whenever the driver would make a sharp turn, a feat that made her legs and abdomen ache the entire way.

Finally, they had arrived at the swanky hotel the Professor was staying at while working on relieving the tension between Congress and mutant-kind. The stress was evident on his face when he opened the hotel door to welcome them.

"Come in, come in," he said distractedly. All the available flat surfaces in the room were covered in stacks of paper, and there were empty cans of energy drinks strewn everywhere. "Sorry for the mess, I don't allow housekeeping inside," he added, attempting to clear a space for all his visitors to sit.

"We will not be long," said Kommissar, stepping into the center of the room. "You are the Professor, I assume? We are here for the payment."

The Professor looked at her blankly for a second before scurrying to his briefcase and pulling out a white envelope. "Ah, yes," he said, handing it over with a small, polite bob of his head. "There you go. Thank you for your service."

Kommissar handed the envelope to Pieter, who opened it swiftly, scanned it, and nodded at Kommissar. "The transaction is complete," she said. Though nothing significant had happened following her grand announcement, they got a strange feeling that something somewhere was suddenly written in stone. "Farewell."

While Pieter made his way straight to the door, Kommissar stopped before Chloe and gave Beca a side-glance before addressing the redhead. "So, this is where I leave you, little teddy bear."

"I'm not little," Chloe protested with a smile. "And it's Chloe, remember?"

"Chlobear," Kommissar answered back defiantly, and only half-reluctantly accepted Chloe's quick hug before rounding on Beca next.

Gathering courage from the fact that these giants were leaving soon, Beca drew herself to full height and held eye contact with Kommissar as she approached.

"I am sure we will meet again, _tiny_ mouse," smirked Kommissar. "Until then, you have a lot of growing up to do."

Beca was prepared with a better comeback for Kommissar's height insult this time. "Yeah? Well, _you_ clearly don't," she provoked. "Because you are _perfect_."

Out of the corner of her eye, Beca saw three pairs of eyebrows rise either in confusion or amusement, one pair draw down in a scowl, and Gail shaking her head.

 _Probably shouldn't have added that last part…_

Kommissar gave one final condescending smirk and promptly followed Pieter out.

"Well, now that that's over," said the Professor, clearing the tension in the room. "Jack," he smiled. "Welcome ba— _oof_!"

Jack wasted no time socking the Professor in the face. The man was knocked back into a desk, sending papers flying everywhere. No one was surprised by the attack, considering what was known about the history between the two, and they found it quite warranted. Even Charlene didn't hurry to help the Professor.

Flexing his fingers, Jack nodded satisfactorily. "All right, I got what I came for. Gail, Chloe, let's go."

"Wait, you're leabbig already?" asked the Professor, stemming the blood gushing from his nose with a handkerchief.

"Gail already explained everything on your end," answered Jack, treating the man with as much class as he could muster at that point. "I will want more answers from you, John, but they will have to wait. Chloe and I need to rest. We've both had quite a long journey."

"So I take it you won't be staying at Barden, Chloe?" asked Charlene.

Chloe glanced briefly at Beca, who looked down and avoided her eyes, and shook her head sadly.

"Okay," the assistant said with an almost disappointed tone, before turning back to Jack. "Gail knows how to contact us without alerting the agency. I suppose we'll see you soon, then."

Beca leaned against the kitchen counter awkwardly while the three made their way out the door.

"Oh, Chloe," called the Professor suddenly. "Just out of curiosity," he lowered his hand to clarify his speech, "and you don't have to addser if you don't wadt to—were you able to get your powers back?"

Beca looked up in spite of herself. She was also rather curious; the information might be helpful, since she had already fucked up once by assuming that Chloe did have them.

From where she stood just beyond the doorframe, Chloe raised her palm outward. A second later, the door swung shut, echoing in the silence that was left in the room.

"I guess things worked out for the best, after all," remarked the Professor, examining the damage to his nose in the nearby mirror.

"Depends on who you ask," corrected Charlene, her eyes on a miserable Beca in the kitchen.

* * *

From the other side of the door, Chloe let out a huge breath.

"Thank God that worked," she said. "It would have been totes embarrassing if the door didn't move at all, huh?"

* * *

 **Response to reviews:**

 **xcombixgirlx** (Oct. 24) - Weekly? Sure! Haha.

 **NerdBoss105** (Oct. 24) - Updating ASAP? I'll do my best! Thank you! Although I guess this wasn't the reunion you were hoping for, huh?

 **Psychic Guest** (Oct. 24) - I loved it when Flula said it in the movie! I thought it was the most adorable thing ever! Good for you! :) Haha your powers didn't fail, don't worry. I kept Beca's outstanding comebacks but Beca feels jealous, too, because of the way Kommissar treats Chloe. ;)

 **Maggie** (Oct. 24 and just a few seconds ago) - Now that you've seen Beca's reaction, I hope you don't feel too bad! Thank you so much, I have you have a great day, too! :) Haha, you reviewed just in time! Sorry for the delay, things got busy around here. I promise the next update will come much sooner.

* * *

 **A/N:** I know things didn't end very well for the girls, but don't worry! The next chapter will shed more light on Beca's ordeal and will tie up some plot stuff in preparation for the season finale. Since I didn't update quickly enough, I'll post the next chapter in a couple of days instead of waiting a week. See you then!


	17. We've Still Got Time

**Chapter Seventeen: We've Still Got Time**

In the aftermath of Chloe, Gail, and Jack's departure, Beca was lazily flipping through television channels in the hotel living room while the Professor cleaned himself up in the bathroom. Charlene was busy reading through some of the stacks of paper scattered around and only looked up when she got irritated at the abruptly changing sounds coming from the TV.

"Could you just pick a channel, please?"

Beca turned away from the screen and saw the raven-haired assistant giving her an annoyed look. "Sorry. I'm looking for the cartoons," she half-joked.

"What's with your…?" Charlene motioned to Beca's brow, which she had just noticed was bruised.

"Oh. That blonde _building_ crashed into me when they returned from the Realm," answered Beca, rolling her eyes. Her brow wasn't hurting half as much as her pride was. "Who the hell _were_ those two anyway?"

Charlene gave up reading the papers and moved over to sit beside Beca on the beige couch. "Essentially, they are mercenaries," she explained. "Kommissar and Pieter are, um, how should I say this… _associated_ with the darkness, which is why they can traverse between the worlds like you with your Keyblade."

Beca frowned. "Are they like us? Mutants, I mean. Heck, are they even human? They seemed way more experienced than we are…"

"They are human, in a sense," Charlene said slowly, "with a lifetime of experience in dealing with Heartless, so don't feel too bad that they were able to do the mission so quickly."

"Mhm." Beca pursed her lips. "Which brings me back to why you didn't just ask them to rescue Chloe in the first place. What does it cost to hire someone like them anyway?"

"Actually, there are none _like_ them. That's the point. They're the only ones—aside from you, of course—that could do what they did for us," said Charlene. "So, by law of supply and demand, they were almost priceless."

"But they _had_ a price. What was it?"

Charlene put up a hand. "You don't have to worry about it, trust me."

Beca scoffed. "Nice try. This deal sounds shady as fuck. After everything that's happened to me since I got to Barden, I don't want any surprises down the road and find out that I'm supposed to donate a limb—"

"The deal doesn't affect anyone but the Professor himself," assured Charlene. "I can't tell you what it is, but I swear on my life that no one else is involved. I wouldn't have agreed to it otherwise, would I?"

Beca stared Charlene straight in the eye to check for signs of dishonesty. Even though she couldn't find any, Beca couldn't help but think that all these adults—Charlene, the Professor, Gail—could have easily been lying to her about everything. At the end of the day, it still felt like she was just a kid playing an adult's game, a game wherein she had no one to rely on but her own gut.

"Okay," she finally relented. "But I still don't get what Kommissar and Pieter have to do with this."

"Well, ideally, after the transaction is done, that's the last we see of them. So they shouldn't bother us again."

"But Kommissar said that she and I would definitely see each other in the future," reminded Beca.

Charlene frowned. "Well, you do have similar responsibilities, I guess…"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not quite sure about their history," said Charlene, stroking her chin thoughtfully, "but they sort of have a mandate to protect the realms of the world, or something like that."

"What—?"

Beca was interrupted by Charlene's phone vibrating on the coffee table. She took a quick glance at it and saw that 'Jesse Swanson' was calling, and watched intently as Charlene answered. "Hello?"

" _Hi, Charlene! Is, uh, Beca with you? Her phone's in her room but she's not in the mansion._ "

Beca could hear Jesse's panicky squeak from where she was sitting. Charlene lowered the phone instantly and put him on speaker.

"Hey, Jess, it's me," greeted Beca. "What's up?"

" _Dude—your_ mom's _here._ "

As if on cue, the shrill voice of Beca's mother blasted through the phone's speaker. " _REBECA MIDDLE-NAME-REDACTED MITCHELL! You have a LOT of explaining to do, young lady!_ "

Beca's face drained of its color. She had completely forgotten the plan to come clean to her mother. Gail's visit to her room the night before had wiped out all other responsibilities from her mind. She glanced up at Charlene desperately only to see an odd, satisfied look on the assistant's face.

Shaking her head at the utter lack of support, Beca addressed her fuming mother. "M-mom, I can totally explain—"

" _Oh,_ totally?" came the caustic response.

"—but I'm in D.C. right now—"

" _I don't care if you're in freaking_ Reykjavik, _Beca! If your ass isn't on the next flight to Atlanta—or_ in the air _because apparently you can_ fly _now_ — _I am grounding you for the rest of your life. IN A CAGE. Good luck flying outta that one!_ "

The long silence following the abrupt hang-up tone was broken by the Professor's reappearance from the bathroom with his nose covered in bandages. "I guess you're going back to Barden tonight," he said, only a fraction more sympathetic than his assistant seemed. "Are you _actually_ going to fly, or…?"

"I'll get us tickets," said Charlene immediately, seeing the dark look on Beca's face. "I should head back as well."

Beca just slumped further into the couch and groaned into a throw pillow. This was turning out to be the worst day ever.

* * *

When Beca walked through the Barden Institute's front door slightly behind Charlene hours later, the mansion was suspiciously quiet, although Beca was sure she had seen Jesse's curtains move when the taxi pulled into Barden's driveway.

"She's probably in your room," suggested Charlene, closing the door behind her. "Do you want me to come with you?"

Beca shook her head softly, declining the last-minute offer of support. She had already spent the entire flight back trying to remember the speech she had written with her friends the other day.

"Okay. I'll be in the office if you need me."

Beca grunted her thanks and slowly made her way to her room, wanting to prolong the inevitable as much as possible. Opening her bedroom door revealed her mother sitting casually on her bed, exactly where Gail had been sitting almost twenty-four hours ago, and even staring at the same photo on her bedside table.

"What are you doing in this picture?" her mother asked without looking up, holding the frame at arm's length and squinting down at the photo. "Your posture is terrible. Do I have to take you to an orthopedist?"

Beca quirked her mouth and sighed, not really wanting to talk about that part of the story… yet. Her mother put the photo down, got to her feet, and immediately enveloped her in a hug. Beca didn't have time to question her mother's motives but just sank into the embrace, relishing in the comfort it brought; it was as though she hadn't even been yelled at earlier that day.

Beca then realized that she was wrong about one thing; even if she were trapped in this complicated game, she could at least always count on her mother to be on her side and look out for her.

"I missed you," the older brunette whispered into her hair.

"Missed you, too," Beca mumbled into her mother's shoulder.

"You haven't been visiting me lately."

"I know," sighed Beca. "I've been kinda busy… as you can imagine."

They finally pulled apart and mother took daughter by the shoulders and, as all mothers do after a long time apart, scrutinized the latter's appearance. "I can _only_ imagine," she said with a slightly scolding tone, which Beca took as a signal to start explaining herself.

"Right... Where do you want me to begin?" asked Beca, moving over to sit on her bed. She was physically exhausted from the nonstop traveling and mentally exhausted from everything else, but she knew this had to be done.

"Actually, you don't have to explain anything."

Beca whipped her head around. "Really? I mean, what?"

Her mother pointed to a piece of paper on her desk. "Jesse told me about your letter, honey. I think he wanted to save you some trouble."

"Oh." Beca deflated, feeling relieved that she didn't have to go through explaining everything and making a mental note to thank Jesse later. "Wait, so you aren't mad that I didn't tell you?"

The woman thought about it briefly. "I only care about _you_ , Beca," she said firmly after a moment. "If you're doing well, if you're healthy, if you're _safe_ ," she stressed the last word. "I wouldn't be angry if all you did was keep your powers a secret. But these _missions_? Going out of the country to fight God knows _what_ those hellish creatures were—and _falling from buildings_ thousands of feet in the air?" Her voice amplified after every word. "How can I justify being a halfway decent mother when my only child has been out there risking her life, and I didn't even _know_ about it?"

"I'm sorry, Mom," Beca said sincerely. "But before you chew me out for doing something I genuinely love, _and_ am proud of, doing, you should know that you are _way_ more than a halfway decent mother. You're practically three-fourths already."

Beca's mother shook head, but her shaking shoulders gave away her silent laughter.

"Seriously, though, Mom," continued Beca. "You are amazing for raising me all on your own for more than half my life. I can't imagine being the person I am today without you. In fact, you should be mad at _yourself_ for raising me to _want_ to risk my life for others." She folded her arms defiantly. "Frankly, if you think about it, this is all _your_ fault."

"Trust my daughter to find a way to turn the tables on me," the older brunette grinned. "You know, if your DJ dreams don't work out, you could always be a lawyer."

"Nah. I always thought the title of 'first mutant lawyer' would belong to Aubrey," smirked Beca. "And I wouldn't want to walk in _her_ shadow."

Beca didn't miss her mother's expression changing upon hearing the word 'mutant.' "So... how are you dealing with all this?" the woman asked. "Emotionally, I mean."

"Well, it's all a little abstract at the moment," replied Beca. "We don't really feel the effects aside from the annoying media attention. The Professor's hard at work in D.C. trying to move things in a reasonable direction so…"

"Speaking of, why _were_ you in D.C.? I don't see why you should be directly involved."

Beca paused. If she wasn't going to get yelled at for keeping her powers a secret, then this was probably the best moment to ask for advice from her mother on her 'relationship' issue, so she took a deep breath. "Mom, there's something else…"

The woman took one look at her daughter's defeated expression and asked, "How bad is it?"

"Oh, you're definitely gonna hate me for it."

"Aha, maybe this will finally do it. I've been looking for a reason."

"Ha-ha," Beca shot back dryly before crawling across the bed to grab the letter she had written on her desk. "That girl I wrote about? The one we forgot and had to rescue?"

"Chloe?"

"Yeah, well," Beca swallowed, "apparently… I was in a relationship with her?"

Her mother raised an eyebrow at the upward inflection. "Are you asking me or are you telling me?"

"I only found out last night, before I wrote that letter," said Beca, ignoring her mom's sarcastic comment. "Gail—she's the Professor's colleague, you met at the Christmas party—didn't want to tell me at first, but since the news broke out about Barden, she was worried that it would distract us from saving Chloe. So she told me last night to sort of 're-motivate' me."

The older brunette's mouth parted slightly. "Okay…" she said slowly. "First question, why didn't Gail tell you about Chloe sooner?"

"Beats me," shrugged Beca, making a mental note to ask Gail the next time they met. "But maybe it was a good thing in the end, because trying rescue her was really dangerous—I mean, it was such a _bore_ —"

"Don't bother," her mother said reproachfully. "But you better rein in that reckless behavior, young lady. It won't do you well in adulthood. Although," she brightened considerably, "I _am_ excited to learn what became of this relationship with Chloe. Oh, is that why you were in D.C.? Did you finally save her—?"

"Actually, that's what I wanted to ask advice from you about," said Beca. "Chloe's safe and all; the Professor hired someone else to do the job. But that's not what's messed up about the relationship."

"Then what is?"

"I don't love her, Mom."

"Oooh," her mom hissed humorously. "Classic case of premature L-word, huh?"

"Sometimes I wonder who's the more immature one between the two of us," deadpanned Beca. She shook her head. "Chloe thinks… She remembers us being a really close couple. Like, _close_ close."

"Are you trying to say that you _love-_ loved each other?"

"I'm saying she _love-_ loved me but I 'loved' her," said Beca, exaggerating the air quotes. Beca's mother burst out laughing and had to be hit with a pillow to stop. "Mom, this is serious!"

"Sorry, honey, I'm just enjoying our little game of semantics. But—wow, okay, you really are serious. Um... So you mean to tell me that you didn't share the same feelings for Chloe at the time of your relationship?"

Beca nodded fervently.

"But what's the big deal here?" shrugged the woman. "Just tell Chloe that you jumped the gun—"

"No, I'm trying to say that I _had_ no feelings for her in the first place!"

Beca's mother frowned deeply. "But how do you know that? Since you don't actually remember _knowing_ Chloe—which, by the way, is some serious case of selective amnesia," she added as an amusing afterthought.

"Come on, Mom, you've known me my entire life," answered Beca, as though that were enough to explain.

"And?"

"Have you ever seen me in a feelings-y relationship before?"

"Not if you don't count those midnight excursions with random members of your former high school's cheerleading squad."

Beca's face flushed violently pink. "Wh-what? Mom, no! Gross! I was out with Jesse!" she defended.

"Oh, _really_?" challenged the older brunette, wearing a smirk that she definitely passed onto her daughter. "You were out with _Jesse_ on a night the whole Swanson family was in Savannah for the weekend? I remember because they so kindly invited us. And I know for a fact that you hate the taste of alcohol so that rules out underage drinking, and I also know you occasionally like to get high—"

Beca opened her mouth to deny the claim, but then remembered that she had once come home from Jesse's by passing through her mother's window instead of her own. So she shut it.

"—but that you can't stand it when _other_ people around you are high, so I assumed all the other times you came home late were for your booty calls."

Beca groaned. "I don't know what's more embarrassing—that you knew about them, or that you call them 'booty calls.'"

"Anyway," her mother laughed, "no, I don't think you've ever been in a legitimate relationship. But what's your point?"

"Well, because of that, I didn't believe that the relationship went both ways, so to speak," Beca said carefully. "But Gail insisted that she heard us both say our I-love-you's already so I had to tell Gail that whatever she remembered me saying that time was a lie."

There was a brief pause wherein Beca's mother grew serious; the humorous twinkle in her eyes was gone and replaced by some kind of concern. "Why did you think it was a lie?" she asked her daughter.

"I had just met her, Mom," Beca answered in equal seriousness. "Knowing myself, there's only one reason I could have told her that at the time."

"And what is that one reason?"

"Come on, Mom, don't make me say it."

"No, say it," Beca's mother demanded sharply. "I want to hear you say out loud how badly you think of yourself, Beca."

Beca clenched her jaw in defiance and tried staring her mother down, but the woman wouldn't back down. "I lied to get her to sleep with me, okay?" she said angrily, embarrassed that she had to confess such a thing out loud to her mom. "She must've thought I was serious about liking her and I just got tangled up in my own lie. It's not like I haven't gone down that road before..."

Amid the silence that followed, Beca swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and asked grimly, "Hate me yet?"

The older brunette shook her head slowly, but whether it was in disappointment or an answer of 'no' Beca couldn't tell yet.

"Because there's more," Beca promised with sarcastic excitement. "When Chloe got back, we talked about it. I ended up denying it so hard that I suggested, basically _accused_ her, that she was using telepathy—one of _her_ powers—to trick me into falling in love with her."

Thinking she had just landed the coup de grâce, Beca was prepared to wait a long time for a response that included a long lecture about how her mother was disappointed in her and how she thought she had raised a better daughter, one who knew how to treat others compassionately.

But Beca's mother was never one to waste precious time. She was a nurse, after all, with plenty of experience in high-pressure situations. Beca knew what she did was wrong; the more important issue at hand was fixing it. "Oh, Beca. I can't believe the lengths you would go to to deny being in love" was all the woman said to her daughter.

Beca, who expected something somewhat different but also somewhat similar to that response, replied, "It's the _only_ explanation—"

"No, Beca, it's not," her mother interjected firmly. "You think it's the only explanation, but it's _not_."

Beca mentally strapped on her seatbelt for the ride through lecture town.

"You think there's this long checklist of conditions to meet before you can confirm that you love someone," the woman began. "And in general those conditions are justified. Of course you want someone you're compatible with; of course you want someone who knows when to use 'whom' and not 'who.'" Beca raised her eyebrows at that. "But the problem with treating it as a checklist, Beca, is that _all_ conditions have to be met. And you have one item on that list that is making it impossible for anyone to be loved by you.

"Time," she answered Beca's questioning look with a small smile. "You said, ' _I had just met her, Mom,_ ' and because of that fact you immediately assumed that loving her—or at the very least, just simply _having_ feelings for her, was impossible. But it's funny that you think it takes a lot of time to get you to love someone, when actually you love very openly, Beca."

"Well, there _is_ damning evidence of that," Beca said sarcastically.

"Actually, there is." Her mom proceeded to list them with her fingers. "Jesse, Luke, Aubrey, St—"

"They're _friends_ , Mom."

"But you love them, right? You wrote in your letter that these are people you could trust with your life. I know you probably wrote that to try to convince me that what you're doing here is safe, but you really meant it, didn't you?"

"Well, yeah, I did… But it's different."

"Sure, there is a difference between loving someone romantically and loving someone as a friend," her mother nodded. "But both start with the same foundations—respect, care, affection… You can feel those with anyone you love."

"Okay, fine. It's possible that I did love Chloe as a friend, then," conceded Beca. "I guess I could go to Chloe and offer her that…"

"Do what you will but that wasn't my point yet," her mother said, waving a hand. "My point goes back to that one item on your checklist: time. You can't understand why a romantic relationship with Chloe developed so quickly, but you can easily admit to loving four other people you've known for just a little longer.

"And I may have the answer to that," she said quickly, when Beca opened her mouth to speak. "It's because they are people you could trust with your life. They are people who, at the worst of times—and times gets pretty bad, based on what I've seen in that video—will always be there for you. From that fact alone, you checked off the time condition on your list."

The more Beca thought about it, the more she agreed with her mother. And maybe that shed light on her problem with Chloe. "So you're saying that," she said slowly, pausing to string the words together, "because I don't _remember_ Chloe, I can't tell if I can trust her? But it was possible that I did at some point and just forgot?"

"It's possible," her mother shrugged, "but I think it's more important to address your time condition first, Beca."

"What do you mean?"

Her mother gave her a knowing look. "Beca, if we left it as it is, you would probably wait to see if someone would stick around for eight years before you decide to commit to _romantic_ relationship."

While wondering from where her mother had pulled the number eight out, Beca finally understood what she had been hinting at. There _was_ a difference between loving her friends and (allegedly) loving Chloe. In her case, 'sticking around' meant something more from Chloe than it did with just her friends.

"I know it's a touchy subject for you," her mother went on to say, "but I can't continue raising you to hold yourself back from _that_ kind of love just because of what happened to our family."

Beca locked eyes with her mother. They had never seriously talked about her father leaving them. Over time, when the scars healed naturally on their own, they both masked them in their trademark sarcasm and humor. But Beca never blamed her mother for failing to talk it through because she knew it hurt her whenever the subject was brought up. Even now, ten years later, she could still see the pain in the older woman's eyes.

"All I'm trying to say, Beca, is stop holding yourself back. Whether it's Chloe or someone else in the future, please give them a shorter time limit to prove that they'll be there for you. You have too big a heart not to share it with someone special just because you're afraid they will leave."

Beca let her mother's words soak in. For some odd reason, though, it felt like they had always been at the back of her mind. And apparently, her mom seemed to think so, too.

"Huh." The woman looked to the side thoughtfully. "I just got major déjà vu from that."

* * *

Some nine hundred miles away, Chloe lay awake in her bed, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars that freckled the ceiling of her room. She had declined Jack and Gail's offer to take an after-dinner stroll through the estate's vast gardens, insisting that they enjoy their quality time together and not worry about her. So she spent the privacy thinking about the past couple of hours.

To say that she was upset with how things went would be a massive understatement. She could understand, after Gail had further explained Charlene's hypothesis, how it was possible for all of her friends to lose their memories of her Nobody, but she couldn't wrap her head around why _Beca_ had no significant reaction to seeing her for the first time in (as she was told) four months.

 _Other than that adorable dopey face she got after I kissed her,_ she thought with a sigh. Because weren't she and Beca supposed to have this unique connection? Wasn't a part of Chloe's heart spiritually _latched_ onto Beca's?

She made a mental note to ask Jack what went wrong with his theory, but that probably settled somewhere at the bottom of Chloe's list of woes.

Heart connection or no heart connection, Beca was clearly a _mess_. It almost felt like meeting an entirely different Beca. (Although, unlike the brunette, Chloe refused to believe that she _was_ an entirely different, mind-altered Beca.) Gone were her charming smirks and playful teasing, which were there even when they had first met. But the Beca that Chloe, as a whole being, reunited with that day was caustic and cynical. The only thing consistent about her personality was her awkwardness.

 _But that never stopped me from kissing her before…_

Chloe shook her head to rid herself of those thoughts. Now was not the time to charge at Beca, guns blazing, when the brunette was clearly going through a crisis of belief. No. Chloe had to be patient. Whatever went wrong with their connection wasn't going to be fixed by pushing Beca too far out of her comfort zone and scaring her into getting back together with her.

A knock on her door interrupted Chloe before she could actually decide on what level of pushing was needed. Gail and Jack popped their heads in through the open door to check in on her.

"Back so soon?" Chloe asked with a laugh.

"Well, after ten years of nothing but a dead coast for a view, the inside of my own house seemed a lot more liberating than a walk in the garden," said Jack as they let themselves in.

"How are you settling in?" asked Gail, glancing around the room. "I took the liberty of filling in your closet while waiting for your return."

"I noticed. Thank you so much," Chloe said with a grateful smile.

"Why is _her_ closet full of clothes while mine is practically empty?" pouted Jack. "All my tuxes are probably gathering dust in some storage unit."

"Actually, I gave them to charity," admitted Gail, giving her husband an affectionate pat on the shoulder. Ignoring his look of anguished incredulity, she turned back to Chloe. "Anyway, we just wanted to check on you before turning in. If you need anything—"

"I actually do have something to ask," said Chloe, swinging her legs off the bed and sitting upright. "It's about Beca."

Gail exchanged an unreadable look with Jack before slowly saying, "Okay..."

"It's about the connection between our hearts. I've been wondering why it wasn't enough for Beca to remember my Nobody."

"I honestly don't know what to say, Chloe," sighed Jack. "I really thought there was something special between you two."

"And there could be," added Gail quickly, giving Jack a reprimanding look. "It's just that it might take time."

Chloe nodded but didn't look that convinced.

"Think of this way," continued Gail, wanting to cheer the redhead up. "Beca had that connection with you since she was eight years old, but nothing happened until you two actually met, right? I'm sure she just needs time. And you will get that soon, don't worry."

"But even if it doesn't get to how it was before, it's not the end of the world. There are plenty of fish in the—" Jack started, earning himself a poke in the ribs from Gail. The two glared playfully at each other, then looked back at Chloe, who seemed considerably more optimistic.

"Time..." She nodded with a small smile. "Got it."

After they had said their goodnights, Chloe turned off her lamp and settled under the covers. It was hard not to think about the fact that the last time she was in that very bed—the last time she had been in _any_ bed, for that matter—was also the first time Beca told Chloe that she loved her.

 _How fast time flies._

* * *

"Are you sure you don't want me to take you home? It's literally twenty minutes away," said Beca, helping her mother into the coat she wore over her nurse scrubs. "Or you could just stay the night."

"That's all right, honey, I need to be at the hospital early tomorrow anyway. Besides, the Professor's assistant called a driver for me or something," the woman replied, then turned around to face her daughter. "I feel so important," she added smugly.

"Hey, you're just riding on _my_ coattails, lady," joked Beca, and then allowed her mother to hold her firmly by the shoulders and scrutinize her once more.

"Are you _sure_ you all right staying here?"

" _Yes_ ," Beca answered emphatically. "I'd do a lot better here than anywhere else, to be honest. I'm more worried about you. Do you think you can handle this back at the hospital?"

Beca's mother waved a hand dismissively. "We're too busy to care about each other's personal lives anyway, and only a handful of people there even know that I have a daughter named Beca. But, um, that does remind me."

"Yeah?"

The older brunette eyed her daughter cautiously. "I've been thinking of changing my name back. You know... dropping the Mitchell."

"Oh." Beca rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly, not really knowing what to say or if she even had an opinion on that. "Okay."

"It's just… Ten years is a long time, you know," her mother said with a shrug.

There was a long pause while they both thought about how long indeed.

"You don't think he's dead, do you?" Beca asked offhandedly.

The two Mitchells locked eyes for a moment before the older one broke contact. "In any case, it's still time for change," she said softly.

"Okay," nodded Beca. "Do you want me to—?"

"Oh, no, that's entirely up to you, honey," her mother insisted. "But I thought it might help with the secret identity thing. Not that I'm worried about it," she added hurriedly. "I just don't want you to worry about them harassing me."

"Oh, okay."

A bright light flashed through the windows by the main entrance, indicating that the car had pulled into the driveway. "Well, I guess this is good bye for now." Beca's mother smiled and hugged her daughter. "Remember what we talked about," she breathed into her daughter's ear.

"I will," promised Beca. "I'll try to visit soon. Send me a text when you get home."

Her mother gave her a mock salute before ducking into the car and waving like a pageant queen as the car drove away. Shaking her head in amusement at her mother's antics, Beca shut the door behind her and made her way back to her room. She wasn't surprised to see Jesse, Aubrey, Luke, Stacie, and Cynthia Rose already waiting for her there.

She sighed exasperatedly. "How much did you guys hear?"

"All of it," Stacie said with a guilty grimace. "You wanna talk?"

"How can I say no when you all went through the trouble to make the trip," Beca answered sarcastically.

Jesse grinned, glad that his best friend hadn't lost her sense of humor. "Aw, we love you, too, Becs!"

* * *

"Good morning," yawned Chloe, sliding into a seat on the kitchen island.

Gail turned away from the stove and smiled. "Good morning, Chloe. Sleep well?"

"Well enough," she shrugged, pouring herself a glass of juice. "Where's Jack?"

"Still in bed. He'll probably be there for a while. He's exhausted."

"Aw, yeah!" Chloe grinned knowingly, raising a hand to offer Gail a high five.

"Not for _that_ reason!" the blonde laughed. After a pause, however, she added, "Okay, maybe a little bit for that reason," and returned the high five.

Chloe chuckled and stifled another yawn behind her hand. If she were being honest, she was still very sleepy. Life in the Dark Margin excluded sleep, but though they didn't feel it while they were there, it hit them hard once they were out—which was probably why Jack was catching up on ten years' worth. For Chloe, however, getting up was a lesser evil compared to tossing and turning in her sheets while dreaming of Beca.

"By the way, we're meeting John later today," informed Gail, serving up a plate of her famous omelet. "He'll be coming after finishing things up in D.C."

"Is Beca going to be with him?" Chloe asked automatically.

Gail shook her head. "Apparently, she had to go back to Barden immediately. I believe she was going to tell her mom about her powers."

Chloe raised her eyebrows in surprise. From what she remembered, Beca had taken a carefree attitude when it came to her mother knowing about her special abilities. "Really? What made her do that?"

Gail chewed her bottom lip cautiously, but decided there was no reason to hide it from Chloe. "There's something you should know—" she began, but before she could continue, Chloe cut in.

"You know, whenever you say that, my heart _literally_ stops beating," the redhead said with a laugh. "From now on just be honest with me. I can handle things."

"Okay," nodded Gail. "Well… the world knows about what goes on at the Barden Institute."

Chloe leaned forward seriously.

"Ever since your Heartless broke through, there have been a lot more minor Heartless popping up in the real world," explained Gail. "The students at Barden had been discreetly taking care of them, wherever they appeared all over the world, and no one was the wiser thanks to a memory modifier that AMG created, patterned after the one we used for your Nobody.

"But a few days ago, a Corridor opened—a much larger one than any we had ever faced since then—in an island country, Isla de San Juan. It was the biggest Heartless attack we had ever encountered since yours, and apparently it was because they were attracted to the darkness in this one man's heart. Eventually, Beca was able to seal the rip and we thought we had done a good job of keeping it under wraps, but we were wrong."

Gail grabbed her iPad from the counter and showed Chloe the video. Chloe gasped when she saw Beca falling from the sky with a swarm of thousands of Heartless chasing after her, and breathed a sigh of relief when Stacie caught her. The video then showed the rest of her friends, including the other students at Barden, fighting off the dark creatures.

"Obviously, this video got passed around a lot on the Internet," said Gail, "so the media and the government have kept their eyes on Barden and the type of people that go there. Mutants," she said slowly, "is what they are now calling people like you."

"Wow," murmured Chloe. "That must be terrible for them. How are they doing?"

"Quite a lot have left Barden, actually," Gail replied sadly. "Beca, Jesse, Luke, Aubrey, Stacie, and Cynthia Rose are obviously still there, but it's only going to get more complicated from now on. That's why John has been in D.C. these past few days; he's trying to prevent a tidal wave of legislation that could potentially limit your freedom."

Chloe nodded. "Let's hope he has good news then."

* * *

John arrived late in the afternoon and was greeted at the door by Gail. He seemed to have aged years since she last saw him only a day ago and he no longer exhibited the aura of ominous enthusiasm he usually wore. His bandaged nose didn't help his shabby image, either. John gratefully accepted Gail's offer of a cup of tea and settled into the salon with her, Jack, and Chloe.

"All right, I have some good news and some bad news—" he began before Jack cut him off.

"First things first, John. I want to be sure that you will _never_ hurt Chloe or put her in harm's way ever again. That goes for any of your students at Barden, too."

John put a hand to his heart. "I swear to you, Jack, I've changed. I hope Gail has told you the same. But I understand that actions mean more than words, so I hope you can give me time to prove to you that I am not the man I was ten years ago. And Chloe," John turned to her, "I hope you can accept my sincerest apologies for what I did to you. I know there's no excuse for my reckless ambition, but I hope you understand that I fully intend to make things right by you."

Chloe looked between the three adults in the room and saw an opportunity to speak her mind. "I accept your apology," she said, "but let's just move past this, all right? Based on what Gail told me has been happening in the past few weeks, we're going to need all the help we can get. I don't want to constantly be looking over my shoulder, expecting you to trick us or something."

John nodded. "I give you my word."

"And that's good enough for now," said Gail, cutting off her husband's retort. "We need to discuss what we're going to do about _their_ future first. How did things go with the lawyers?"

"We're building a defense against this whole national security threat angle, but the best we can hope for at the moment is to keep at least their constitutional rights preserved." He paused. "The bad news is that a senator from Wisconsin has started drafting a bill similar to the SRA—"

"But that _was_ unconstitutional," said Jack angrily. "What makes them think it will work _this_ time?"

"Well, last time there weren't institutions like Barden that trained mutants to conduct covert missions," John replied pointedly. "And they're being smart about it this time. The shock effect has dampened now so they won't be pressured like last time to make a flimsy bill—"

"Wait, I don't follow," Chloe piped up. "What's the SRA?"

"The Superhuman Registration Act. It was the first attempt to handle the discovery of people with special powers decades ago," explained Gail. "It was simply meant to be a law that required them to register themselves as such, but somehow a provision snuck in that allowed unlawful seizure—meaning they could be arrested for no reason other than the fact that they were mutants. It was, to use John's term, _flimsy_ at best, which is why they struck it down soon after it was enacted."

"And things really are different this time around," continued John. "The government has a different attitude when it comes to terrorism and national security. The image of the Herrera tower shrouded in darkness was not a pleasant reminder, if you know what I mean."

The air grew tense. It was not a topic they liked to discuss, but there was no denying that public sentiment might be skewed against their favor.

"Oh, but there's more bad news," sighed John. "Gail, how much do you trust your pilot?"

Gail frowned. "His contract included a non-disclosure agreement. He wouldn't—"

"You mean he _couldn't_ ," corrected Jack, catching on to what John was implying. "With enough incentive, he _would_."

"Are you saying—?"

John nodded solemnly. "He _only_ admitted to piloting the jet; he hasn't said anything about the missions. Our lawyers think it's his way of working around the non-disclosure—he doesn't implicate you or the students, but in exchange he can ask for immunity in case they do go after AMG."

Gail ran a hand through her hair. "That doesn't change the fact that AMG is already implicated in this! And—oh, God—the agency will know we've been keeping touch!"

"Calm down," said John, holding up his hands. "AMG won't be implicated if you release a statement saying you were using the company jet for personal use—it shouldn't surprise anyone since AMG is a private company anyway. Although it might harm your prospects of going public—"

"That's not going to be a problem," Jack and Gail said in unison. Jack grinned proudly at his wife for keeping their company intact through all these years.

John nodded. "But about the agency…"

"They already know, don't they?" said Jack, knowing how _secret_ certain government agencies could get.

"Since Florida."

"Are we in trouble?" Gail asked worriedly.

John shook his head. "Quite the opposite actually, and this is the good news I've brought. They want to help."

"How?"

"Lobbying and presidential veto."

The air grew silent once more as Chloe looked between the three adults and tried to maintain hold of the conversation. Apparently the agency that was behind the Project now wanted to help them?

"Do you think it will work?" asked Gail.

But Jack had another question in mind. "In exchange for what?"

"It will work insofar as it gives us more freedom and more time, and they offer it in exchange for cooperation," John answered simply. "But they warn that it won't be easy. The current legislation, renamed the _Mutant_ Registration Act, is damn good. Not in the moral sense, no, but in the sense that it could actually pass as constitutional this time. What the agency is offering is simply to even out the playing field."

"I'm not so sure about this," murmured Jack.

"Me neither, but I'm afraid we don't have much time to consider other options," said John. "They expect to have the bill on the floor by next week."

"That's ridiculous!" Gail burst out angrily. "They're being impulsive—"

"Calm down, honey," Jack placed a hand on Gail's shoulder to still her. "We can't stop the bill from being written now, but we can stop it from getting passed by being two steps ahead of them. We need to know our next move."

"Actually, I was wondering the same thing," said John. "The students can't really do much besides keeping their heads down and avoiding a scandal, but what are _you_ going to do? You were a prominent public figure, Jack, and many people thought you'd _died_."

"Jeez, couldn't you have just said I went on a permanent retirement?" grumbled Jack, facing Gail.

"In my defense, I _did_ think you were dead. But we could still say that you disappeared to 'find yourself'… But then that's another AMG-related scandal to add on top of the jet thing…"

"Actually, that might just be what the media needs," said John. "I mean, it's at your personal expense of course, but it could split attention away from the mutant issue for just enough time to gather more support for us in Congress."

Jack exchanged looks with Gail. "We'll think about it," he said.

"All right. If there's nothing else, I'll let you know about the proceedings as soon as I can. We're still playing the waiting game at this point." John made to stand up but Jack had one more question on his mind.

"What was your agreement with Kommissar and Pieter?"

John seemed to have expected this question and relaxed his face into a small smile as he sat back down. "I assume you are familiar with their work?"

"Yes," answered Jack, at the same time Gail and Chloe answered, "No."

"So you knew who they were all this time?" Chloe asked Jack with a frown.

"I figured it out as we went through the Realm of Darkness," he answered, before turning back to John. "And that concerns me because they don't just accept _any_ payment. Not anymore, at least."

"Can someone please explain who those two were first?" Gail cut in irritably, not liking being left out of the loop.

"Kommissar was a goddess, Gail," John answered bluntly.

Gail raised an eyebrow, and so did Chloe. "I don't know if that's—I mean, she's pretty, sure," mumbled Chloe. "She's got killer cheekbones, but I wouldn't say _goddess_ …"

"He means it literally, Chloe," said Jack. "And she _was_ a goddess. She's not anymore, technically, but she retains much of her… godliness."

"What are you talking about?" asked Chloe. "She's not—"

But as Chloe tried to remember what Kommissar had told her about her origins, she realized that she hadn't actually finished the story before falling asleep.

 _Dammit_ , she cursed herself. _I should really learn to focus on these things._

"I noticed it while I was on Pieter's shoulder," continued Jack. "He wasn't an ordinary rock golem, in a sense that he wasn't made of _earth_. But the giveaway was how he had opened the Door to Darkness. I assumed he'd use some object like a Keyblade, but he didn't."

"So? What does that mean?" asked Gail.

"It means that the darkness was probably a fabric of their very being, which is almost impossible to have in this day and age unless you're a Heartless. But during my research on the light and dark, I came across writings on certain dark beings that remained after all these years. It only made sense that she was one."

"Kommissar and Pieter are… gods?" Chloe repeated incredulously. She remembered learning about gods and goddesses in school and thought the consensus was that they were mythical.

"Well, Kommissar is," corrected Jack. "Pieter, I am assuming, is some sort of associate of hers—like a guardian or a protector. Kommissar is the real thing, though. I mean, that _aura_ —"

"So what exactly do they do? What is their line of work?" asked Gail, sharply cutting into Jack's awed description.

Jack turned to John to allow him to explain. "Well, to put it simply, they are the stewards of the Realm of Darkness," the man answered. "They manage traffic, so to speak, going in and out of the Realm."

"They don't seem to be doing a very good job then," said Gail. "Since Heartless have been appearing in the real world, and Beca and the others have been popping in and out."

"Actually, honey, it is not their job to be some sort of gatekeeper," clarified Jack. "Their primary job is to keep the _balance_. They do that by managing how much darkness exists in the Realm—and that involves letting Heartless in _and_ out."

"Do you mean to say…" Gail began slowly. "That they were the ones behind Heartless attacks all this time?"

"Not with a malicious intent. The world itself tries to reach this balance on its own: for every light, there is dark. Kommissar and Pieter make arcane decisions that deal with these sorts of things."

"And because they possess such power," continued John, "back in the old times—and, as I had learned, even today—humans have reached out to them, asking to either retrieve someone _from_ the darkness or cast someone _into_ the darkness, eventually giving rise to the incorrect idea that they were mercenaries when, in fact, they don't need to fight at all, they just travel. But over the years, as more and more deals were made, they realized the instability of their own system and raised the cost of a 'favor' to an allegedly impossible amount."

"Which brings us back to my question," said Jack, turning to John. "What could you possibly offer them to get them to agree to do an extraction?"

John paused, although Chloe suspected it was for dramatic effect rather than hesitation to answer Jack's question. "A life for a life," he said simply.

Gail's eyes widened in surprise. "You gave up your _life_? How? What— _when_? How did you fit that into a letter?"

"It was a blood letter," he answered with a chuckle. "To their credit, it was a pretty clever wordplay. It was a small packet of my blood, although had they stayed longer they wouldn't have needed it," he added, gesturing to his nose.

But, as usual, Jack had a more obscure concern on his mind. "But you took _two_ lives," he said, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. To their surprise, John actually smiled at that.

"I know," he said happily. "Remember, this was back when we thought only _Chloe_ was trapped in the in-between world. I thought I was only paying for one life but I guess they were benevolent enough to get you both. Isn't that great?"

"But you…" Chloe frowned slightly, "you offered up your life? Just to get me back faster?"

"It's not like I'm dying any time soon," he assured with a chuckle. "They only get my life when I die, not the _remainder_ of my life. I still have plenty of time."

"But what use are use are you after you die?" Gail asked curiously. "No offense."

John shrugged. "I have no idea what they will do to me exactly… No one has ever, uh, _lived_ to tell the tale, so to speak."

The room was quiet again as Chloe and Jack contemplated the cost of being there. "Thank you," Chloe said quietly. Jack nodded his head in thanks, still finding it difficult to say the words out loud.

John gave another shrug and said, "I have no regrets," before proceeding to take his leave.

The three watched as he got into his car and disappeared past the estate's white gates, off into the sunset. Deep in the corners of his mind, Jack was still wary of owing his life to that man.

* * *

"That ended sooner than I expected," remarked Gail.

Despite the ominous feeling he had, Jack grinned and said, "That's definitely _not_ what you said last night—hey-oh!"

He enthusiastically high-fived a giggling Chloe while Gail shook her head in amusement. "You know, we're quickly becoming that inappropriately boundary-less family that everyone tries to avoid having over for dinner," she mused.

"Yeah, tell me about it," agreed Chloe, then she jerked her thumb in Jack's direction. "He wasted no time asking me about my sex life when I got to the Dark Margin."

"In my defense, I was looking out for you!" argued Jack. "Nothing to worry about, honey," he added, correctly reading his wife's attempt to hide her curiosity. "They haven't done anything. She said they were planning to 'wait'—"

"Oh, God." Chloe covered her ears and scrunched her face. "Stop! This is too embarrassing."

"I'm just repeating what you told me—come on, Chlo, we have a family reputation to uphold!" laughed Jack, playfully chasing after her as she ran away chanting "lalala," and unknowingly leaving Gail in the foyer with a deep and confused frown on her face.

* * *

 **Response to reviews:**

 **Another Random Human** (Nov. 2) - Thanks! I'll try to make up for Beca's lack of (intentional) flirting in future chapters. :)

 **Nerdboss105** (Nov. 2) - Hahaha those are the very words I've been screaming to myself when writing the end of this season.

 **xcombixgirlx** (Nov. 2) - "The power of foot in mouth" LOL! I love that! She should include that in her list of powers.

 **Maggie** (Nov. 2) - Things will be looking up for Chloe soon! :)

 **Psychic Guest** (Nov. 2) - Oh, they're totes coming back! I have a feeling they're going to be involving themselves in Beca's life whether she likes it or not. The rest of the team will meet Chloe in the next chapter. :) Oooh, just you wait for that Staubrey development *rubs hands* I had this planned since season one. I'm not sure what 'cute' means for you, but right now I'm riding the 'comically inappropriate family' wave haha.

* * *

 **A/N:** So, we've reached the penultimate chapter of season two, which means that the next update will be the season finale + an epilogue. After that, unfortunately, I will be going on a hiatus to write season three and also finish up that other story whose ending is gathering virtual dust.

See you at the finale! I am still very grateful for your patience and interest in reading this story. Have a great week, everybody.

P.S. Obviously, I have no idea what name to give Beca's mom haha.

 **Trivia:** I actually wrote the part where Jack asks Chloe about her sex life with Beca for an earlier chapter, when they were still in the Dark Margin haha. I had to cut it for brevity, though. Maybe I'll post it sometime during the hiatus to keep things interesting.


	18. Season Two Finale

**A/N:** Sorry for the late upload, I actually had to rewrite this chapter from start to finish to address some reviewers' wishes. As a result, this chapter is **the longest** at 15,000 words, including the Epilogue, to fit all the detailed interactions. I've put checkpoints so you won't have a difficult time if you don't want to read the whole thing through.

* * *

 **Chapter Eighteen: Season Two Finale**

In the week that followed Chloe and Jack's return, dealing with the mutant population (still largely unknown save for the Barden students) continued to escalate into a global issue. Although the United States remained to be the only country with _proven_ mutant citizens, developed countries around the world scrambled to make the Mutant Registration Bill a model for their own safety.

Following the advice of Gail's publicist, the Professor had asked Luke and Aubrey to accompany him to press conferences in D.C. as an opportunity to show themselves off as model students: disciplined, morally upright, and well in control of their powers. Meanwhile, back at Barden, with the academic year winding to a close and schoolwork that had been pushed back to accommodate missions gathering in piles on their desks, Beca and Jesse kept their noses to the grindstone in their effort to graduate. No complaints were heard, though, as they were actually grateful for the distraction.

The Abernathy-McKadden household, however, was facing more stressing concerns than homework. After their meeting with John, the couple had agreed to come out with a scandal of their own as a distraction and, for a while, the mutant issue shared front-page news with AMG. Gail admitted to being at Isla de San Juan at the time the video was taken, although she added reasonably that she had visited the island multiple times in the past due to her friendship with the Herreras and, given that they had recently passed, it wasn't too far-fetched for her to be visiting their orphaned son.

But that wasn't what got the media's attention split between mutants and AMG. Despite many opinionated writers crying 'bullshit' on Gail's excuse, her scandal was rightly overshadowed by Jack's apparent resurrection from death. The co-founder and former COO of AMG held his own press conference to announce the end of his decade-long 'spiritual retreat,' claiming to have been hopping around the most remote places of the world trying to discover the meaning of life. Unfortunately, in his desire not to implicate Gail in his own scandal, Jack was pressured to say that his wife was not aware of this retreat until only recently (which was somewhat similar to the truth).

This admission caused more problems than it solved, however, as yet another media flurry, this time in gossip magazines, republished old articles with pictures of Gail 'moving on' with men she dated years after Jack had 'died.' This resulted in an unaddressed tension between husband and wife, leaving Chloe in a very awkward position. The articles were published over a week ago but things were still a bit frosty between Jack and Gail ever since he found out that one of the people Gail dated was someone called Feinberg, who—from what Chloe overheard—had once tried to buy AMG.

And so the couple had lately turned to using the mutant issue to release their tensions, which meant that their every waking moment was spent in the manor's stuffy library with John and a bunch of lawyers. With nothing else to do, Chloe found herself being dragged into these meetings.

It wasn't exactly the fun family bonding Chloe had expected after returning from the Dark Margin.

* * *

" _Identification tags?!" Gail yelled, slamming her palm on the wooden desk._

 _Chloe looked up from a copy of the bill she had only begun to read._

" _They can't_ seriously _expect us to sink to this level of discrimination?" Gail shot her question sharply in the direction of the team of lawyers in the room._

" _We've thought about pushing for a revision," said the oldest and baldest of the lawyers. "But as per your agreement with Homeland Security, it shouldn't matter—"_

" _Of course it fucking matters!"_

" _Calm down, honey," sighed Jack, rubbing his face wearily. "In that case, can't they make it more specific and rephrase? I don't think they will appreciate being forced to wear 'identification tags'…"_

" _And this provision prohibiting combat training," added John, frowning down at the paper. "Doesn't that defeat the purpose of our agreement?"_

" _Oh!" Gail suddenly exclaimed, having read another controversial line in the bill. "No unauthorized mutant gatherings of three or more? Are you_ fucking _kidding me—"_

" _What if the students just want to hang out at a party? Are they going to arrest them then?"_

" _You're their fucking lawyers, aren't you?"_

 _"Why the hell are we paying fifteen-hundred dollars an hour for you to act like the opposition?"_

* * *

Chloe remembered the rest of that meeting going pretty much the same way: a lot of shouting and swearing from Gail, Jack, and John, and a lot of apologizing and promising from the lawyers. There wasn't much Chloe could do besides occasionally adding a face to the injustice that the bill would cause.

* * *

 **TUESDAY - Homesick**

Chloe's eyes fluttered open slowly. Her alarm hadn't woken her up, but the raised voices coming from downstairs did. Not wanting to be dragged into another meeting with the sharks (or another petty argument between Jack and Gail, which was just as bad), Chloe crawled further into bed and shut the noise out with her pillow. She stayed there for the rest of the day, missing meals, but her parental figures either didn't notice that or weren't home—or maybe they thought that Chloe wanted space when it was quite the opposite. She wanted someone to talk to, about something other than how bleak the future was turning out to be.

Actually, not _just_ someone; she wanted Beca. Though she promised herself that she would give Beca time, there was no denying that no one else would be as good at making her feel like everything will be okay than Beca. Sure, Gail and Jack sympathized with her situation—in fact, sympathy was all they had time to give her these days—but she needed someone who was just as confused as she was about what the future _really_ entailed for them. She wanted to be around others who felt just as out of control as she did.

She wanted to be back at Barden.

* * *

Jesse went straight for the sofa and plopped himself facedown on it. They had just finished a minor mission in rural Texas and were on the AMG jet back to Barden. Even with everything going on, the students still found (or were forced to find) the time and energy to continue sealing Corridors of Darkness, which haven't stopped appearing.

Their missions continued on as though nothing had changed—except maybe the way the students personally felt about them. It wasn't that they didn't _want_ to continue, but now that the world knew what they had been doing, it somehow felt like an _obligation_ to do it—which, again, didn't really bother them.

Unless they were Stacie Conrad, of course.

"Another day, another mission," hummed Cynthia Rose, following Stacie to the cockpit. Since the two had been given pilot training prior to being assigned at Barden, they had taken over piloting duties when Gail's had admitted to flying her to Isla de San Juan. "Something wrong?" she asked, when Stacie only grunted in reply.

Never one to hold back on her opinion, Stacie immediately responded. "Don't you think it's kind of messed up that we keep fighting Heartless while the very people we're protecting them from call us dangerous and want to control our lives?"

Cynthia Rose noted from the brunette's tone that this was a thought she'd been having for quite a while now. And in typical Cynthia Rose fashion, she responded passively. "In what way is it messed up?"

"They are acting against their own interests," answered Stacie. "They're backing a policy they _think_ is in the name of national security, when in fact it will disincentivize _us_ from _protecting_ national security."

"The bill isn't final yet," Cynthia Rose reminded her patiently, "there's a chance it won't be passed—"

"Luke and Aubrey wouldn't still be in D.C. if the Professor had any hope that it wouldn't pass," said Stacie shrewdly. "And I bet there will be something on there that dictates what we can and can't do with our powers."

Cynthia Rose paused to think. "I understand why you're pissed, but what would be a best case scenario here, Stace? How can the government ensure the safety of its citizens while keeping the mutant population happy?"

Stacie had been friends with Cynthia Rose long enough to know that she was asking these questions to be helpful. "A _private_ registration, first of all," she answered. "The public shouldn't care if we're mutants or not. And no surveillance, no restrictions on our freedom."

"What if something bad happens? We've been lucky so far but what if there _is_ someone out there with powers who just wants to be bad?"

"Then treat them the same way we would treat other _potentially_ bad citizens," argued Stacie. "What's the difference between a guy next to you on the bus carrying a gun and a guy in front of you who can shoot lasers from his eyes? Are you more safe if either guy got off the bus?"

Cynthia Rose chewed her tongue, not really having an answer for that. Stacie sighed and leaned back in her chair.

"I just don't want us to be treated differently—treated _worse_ ," she said solemnly. "But I guess it's too late now."

Suspecting that Stacie was drawing from her own personal experience, Cynthia Rose leaned across her seat and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Hey, we're going to get through this together. Whatever happens, you won't be alone anymore. You have a family now."

Stacie gave her a weak smile in return.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the main cabin, Beca was sitting on the end of the couch where Jesse's legs were, with her nose buried in Physics notes. Jesse rolled over and scoffed when he saw Beca studying. "Are you seriously studying _again_?"

Beca nodded, not looking up. "Our exam is tomorrow."

Jesse's eyebrow shot up. "I know. And normally I wouldn't be surprised to see you cramming the night before, but you've been studying the same subject for the past _week_ , Becs. You could probably _teach_ Physics at this point."

When Beca merely hummed in reply, Jesse leaned up and snatched the notes from her hand.

"Hey! What the fuck, man!"

"Dude, you need to lighten up. I'm serious. You're always busy, and when you're not, you're _trying_ to make yourself busy. You need more _you_ time, otherwise you'll turn into Aubrey."

Beca glared at him. "Be thankful your girlfriend isn't here to hear you say that."

Jesse brushed the comment off. "If you won't talk to yourself at least talk to _me._ " His face turned serious. "I mean, we are best friends, right? We're supposed to talk to each other about our feelings."

"Is there something _you_ want to tell _me_ , Jess?" Beca asked suspiciously.

"Nope, I'm doing great. But you're clearly not, so _talk to me_. Is this about Chloe?" he added, when Beca still looked hesitant.

Beca sighed and gave in. Besides, it wasn't like she needed to pass that test to get into college anyway. "Kind of," she shrugged, "but it's not just her. It's everything that's going on. I _want_ to do something about Chloe but we have this mutant registration thing to worry about first. Not to mention the ton of schoolwork to finish—but then, when I get to thinking about it, who cares? Are mutants even going to be _allowed_ in colleges after this? And what about the Keyblade, the Heartless? Are they still going to be _my_ problem after this bill gets passed?"

She shook her head in disdain. "Our whole lives are changing, Jesse, and the people changing them don't even care. I hate that the Professor and the others are sugarcoating everything and keeping us in the dark, but at the same time I'm sort of glad they're fighting our fight for us if it means that we don't have to."

Jesse nodded, slightly overwhelmed by how much was really weighing on Beca's mind. "First of all," he began, "it's good to get these feelings out, Becs, and you shouldn't be surprised that a lot of us are thinking the same things. We're _all_ worried about the future. But right now, all we can do is to carry on. Don't worry about the bill—Luke and Aubrey are there in D.C.; they'll take care of us! They always have. And if something goes wrong then… then we'll keep fighting! Same thing when it comes to the Heartless, we'll keep fighting—"

"Bullshit."

They both whipped their heads toward the opposite end of the cabin, where they thought Bumper had been sleeping. Since the number of students left at Barden had drastically diminished, the team system had been dropped and Bumper now regularly accompanied them on their missions.

"No offense, Swanson—no, wait, _offense meant_ , Swanson, but that's stupid," said Bumper, rising from the armchair and strutting over to them. "What the hell do we owe those jackasses? They want to strip us of _our_ rights because they think we're dangerous, and get to sleep in bed at night safe from the Heartless _we_ killed? No. Fucking. Way. I say we teach them a lesson in appreciation and just stop fighting Heartless altogether. Let's see how _they_ deal with them without our help."

Jesse glared up at Bumper. "That's not how things work. We never used to care about appreciation before."

"I'd rather save someone who didn't know me than someone who fucked me over." Bumper raised his hands, said, "But that's just me," and walked away.

"Bumper's just… He doesn't know what he's talking about," grumbled Jesse.

"Relax, dude. I know Bumper can be full of shit sometimes," assured Beca. "He has a point but… it's not the right point."

"Yeah!" Jesse nodded vigorously. He trailed off for a moment before remembering that he had more to say. "One more thing," he said, "this is _Chloe's_ problem, too. According to you, she _has_ powers now, which means her future is every bit as messy as ours. She might need someone to talk to and, honestly, Becs, if you're the reason she's keeping herself in New York instead of reaching out to us then maybe you should do something about it."

Beca bit her lip. Jesse was right. Her traumatic reunion with Beca was probably why Chloe wasn't going to Barden to at least reunite with her other friends. And if Beca was already feeling anxious about what was going on with the legislation, she could only imagine what Chloe was feeling being right where it was happening.

"All right," she mumbled. "I'll talk to Charlene about heading up there tomorrow."

* * *

The jet taxied into Barden's underground hangar at around midnight, and the students ascended to the aboveground part of the mansion to the sound of strong winds and rain pelting the glass windows. Most of them were bleary-eyed and sleepy, so Beca offered to double-check security for the night. It had become a regular routine ever since one paparazzo had managed to enter the house and take photos before getting caught by Cynthia Rose and thrown out on his ass.

Beca was just finishing with the kitchen when she heard a faint tapping sound. She instinctively hid in the shadows and followed the source of the noise, which got increasingly agitated, until she reached the foyer and looked through the small windows on either side of the double doors. The tapping stopped and Beca saw whoever was knocking turn around exasperatedly. Thanks to the porch lights, Beca saw a flash of wet, darkened red hair and gasped.

"Chloe?"

* * *

About half an hour later, Chloe was sitting on Beca's bed with a towel wrapped around her shoulders and a mug of hot chocolate between her hands. Beca had loaned her a warm change of clothes and was now sitting on her desk chair, face to face with the redhead. Neither spoke for a while, which left Beca wondering whether she should apologize again for their last encounter, and if so, _how_. In the end, she decided to just be honest.

"Chloe, I'm really sorry for what I said to you last week. It turns out that I have this… thing… with trust issues." Beca rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. "And I guess I couldn't believe that we got together in such a short time so I jumped at the chance to rationalize it, and I shouldn't have. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings." She bowed her head and confessed quietly, "I really don't wanna do that ever again."

Chloe, who had been listening patiently to Beca's apology, nodded softly. "I can't lie and say I was okay with how you reacted," she said slowly. "But I've had a lot of time to think and…" She drew the towel closer around herself, which immediately prompted Beca to reach to the side and draw out her blanket.

"Here," offered Beca, taking the damp towel off Chloe's shoulders and replacing it with the warm blanket. She noticed Chloe staring at her curiously, so she cleared her throat awkwardly. "Sorry, you were saying?"

Chloe suppressed a smile and got back on track. "I spent a lot of time thinking," she repeated. "I realized that I don't blame you for not believing me—maybe you were right," she shrugged. "I'm not exactly an expert at relationships myself so I never questioned how quickly ours developed. But I don't think the Beca I knew was a different person; I just think she forgot that she exists."

Beca had given Chloe the same courtesy and remained silent throughout, but she couldn't hide her nervous gulp. Beca had already realized from the talk with her mother that she wasn't a different person then—in fact, she confessed to being _exactly_ the person she used to be, and that was someone Beca _didn't_ want to be around Chloe.

"But don't worry," Chloe added quickly, seeing Beca lose color, "I'm not expecting you to remember, or even that we'll get back together. I meant it when I said that I would _always_ love you, but that doesn't mean we can't just be friends now, right?"

Beca's head snapped up. Of course she was eager to be friends with the redhead. At the very least, it would give her time to be a better person to her. It would also mean that she'd be _friends_ with Chloe, that they'd be a part of each other's lives. Beca couldn't explain why that thought made her feel all warm inside, but she didn't question it.

"Yeah," she nodded slowly, "friends."

Chloe smiled. "Great! In that case, maybe we need to redo our introductions." She leaned over to place the mug on Beca's bedside table, shrugged off the blanket, and stood up, extending her hand in front of her. "Hi! My name's Chloe. Who are you?"

Beca looked up at her for a few dazed seconds before getting off her chair. She wiped her sweaty palm on her jeans and returned Chloe's handshake. "Uh, Beca," she replied with a lopsided grin.

"Beca," smiled Chloe, allowing their hands to stay clasped for a while. "What an interesting name."

"Thanks. It's short for 'Becomes-extremely-awkward-in-social-situations.'"

Chloe let out a tinkling laugh. Feeling more and more comfortable with the redhead, Beca motioned for her to take a seat on the bed and continued their niceties, "So, what brings you here, Chloe?"

"I'm glad you asked, Beca. I kinda need a friend right now."

Beca's smile faltered sympathetically. "Is everything okay up there?" she asked softly. She had heard (from Jesse, of course) what gossip magazines were spreading and figured it must be difficult for Chloe to be around that tension.

"It's like the Ice Age over there," sighed Chloe. "It's been _days_ since Jack braided Gail's hair and—"

"Ugh, _gross_ ," grimaced Beca. "Is that like a sex metaphor?"

"It's something they do that Jack thinks is romantic," said Chloe, rolling her eyes. "Although, now that I think about it, you can tell when they'd just had sex if Gail's hair was—"

"Stop! Change topic!" Beca waved her hands wildly. More than not wanting to hear about other people's sex lives, Beca did not want to hear Chloe talking about it. It thrilled and scared her at the same time. And when she settled her hands, she saw that Chloe was laughing at her.

"I'm glad I have someone to be inappropriate around," she said amusedly, "other than my inappropriate foster parents."

"Aren't the Professor and Aubrey and Luke always over at your place anyway?" asked Beca, not liking the thought of Chloe being lonely in that huge house while Jack and Gail went on managing their business.

"Well, John only occasionally visits when there's a huge development in the bill," replied Chloe, plucking at a loose piece of thread on the blanket. "Luke and Aubrey have never been over, though. They always stay in D.C. to do John's work while he's gone…"

Beca noticed the downcast expression on her face. "I'm sure they're not trying to avoid you or anything," she consoled the redhead. "They're even too busy to talk to us. We're being kept in the dark actually."

"I know, and that's why I decided to come here," nodded Chloe. "Being in the loop is really depressing when you can't do anything about it. I'd rather be here, waiting it out like the rest of you."

Beca nodded slowly. "Are things really as bad as we think they are?" she asked tentatively.

"That's the thing—we can't really tell at this point," groaned Chloe, leaning all the way back to lie on Beca's bed. "They just keep throwing _provisions_ and _amendments_ in there, and then Jack, Gail, and John yell at the lawyers to get them to remove it—but they just come back the next day with more. I honestly can't take it anymore. I kind of just want it to be over with so I can figure out what I'm supposed to do."

"I know how you feel," empathized Beca, dragging her chair closer to the bed and Chloe's head. She flipped it around and folded her arms over the top of the backrest. Resting her chin on her arm, she looked down at Chloe. "Jesse thinks they're going to shut down the institute," she murmured.

Chloe's eyes met hers and Beca got so caught off guard by their color that she didn't hear what Chloe said in response.

"I'm sorry, I zoned out there—what did you say?"

Chloe giggled. "I said you have nothing to worry about. They're talking about keeping Barden open for the sake of having a school where mutants won't be discriminated. But they're looking to get rid of all the training stuff."

Beca frowned. "Well that's stupid. What's to stop us from training on our own? We're all together anyway."

Chloe bit her lip, clearly refraining from telling Beca on purpose.

"You know what, never mind," Beca backtracked quickly. "I'll find out when things are a hundred percent."

"Sorry," said Chloe. "It's just better that you don't worry about something that's not final yet."

"But what about you?" asked Beca, suddenly feeling protective. "It's not fair that _you_ have to worry about all this."

"That's why I came here."

"Well, I'm glad you did," said Beca, immediately regretting how eager she sounded. But so what? They were friends, right? Nothing wrong with being friendly. Still, Beca couldn't resist adding, as a cover, "'Cause, you know… the more the merrier."

Chloe's laugh turned into a yawn, which reminded Beca of how late it was. "Jeez, you must be exhausted," she said hurriedly, trying to figure out what to do with her hands to somehow make Chloe comfortable. "You should get some sleep. Stay in my bed, I'll…"

"Aren't there half a dozen free rooms now?"

Beca paused. She really didn't think this through. "Right," she said, mentally smacking herself on the forehead for not thinking of offering Chloe any one of the now clean and empty beds instead of her own lumpy one.

"But if it's cool with you… I'd like to stay here for the night?"

It didn't take Beca long to agree. "I don't see why not," she said, and it was true. There should be no reason Chloe couldn't sleep in her bed. Right?

"With you, I mean," Chloe added carefully, watching Beca's expression like someone trying not to startle a baby deer in the wilderness.

"Yeah, I thought that was implied," smirked Beca, taking Chloe completely by surprise.

Chloe's resulting smile couldn't be bigger if you told her that smiling cured cancer. But she downplayed her emotions, reminding herself not to rush Beca with her own feelings. "In that case, get in here," she said, scooting to one side of the bed and patting the other. "I want you catch me up on everything I missed on reality TV in the past four months—and don't hold back on the bitchy stuff."

Beca chuckled and went into her bathroom to change while Chloe snuggled under the comforter. Beca returned and took her place beside Chloe, sitting against the headboard with her hands folded across her stomach. She was suddenly thankful for the Barden Institute's decision to invest in a double bed for every room, because otherwise she would have been overly-conscious of being in contact with her nothing-more-than-a- _friend_ 's skin—a thought that bothered her as she half-heartedly defended herself for not watching silly TV shows.

Eventually, the debate over which was the more socially significant cartoon of their generation, _As Told by Ginger_ or _Hey! Arnold_ (it was a no brainer which side the redhead was on) turned into incoherent mumblings on Chloe's part.

"How about we just settle on _Rugrats_? Chuckie's a redhead, too," suggested Beca, her voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes were closed and she had been drifting in and out of sleep for the past few minutes while trying to keep the conversation going. When Chloe didn't answer, Beca peeled her sleepy eyes open and glanced to her left to see the redhead finally sound asleep.

* * *

 **WEDNESDAY - The Mutant Registration Bill**

Beca woke up when she felt a gentle weight lift off her chest. She blinked her eyes open and turned to her side, away from the obnoxious rays of the sun, to find Chloe was lying on her stomach with a pillow over her head.

"I forgot how bright your room was in the morning," came her muffled groan.

Beca chuckled and forced herself up to pull the drapes over the window. She could have just as easily pulled them with her powers, but she needed the excuse to put some distance between her and Chloe. Just as she managed to block most of the sunlight, they heard two sharp raps on the door before it unceremoniously swung open.

"Hey, Becs, I was thinking—"

A pajama-clad Jesse froze when he saw the brunette standing by the window, and _not_ on the bed where a pair of shapely legs were poking out from under the disheveled comforter. "Who the—?"

Chloe pulled the pillow off her head at the sound of his voice, cried "Jesse!" and jumped up to give him a huge hug. She couldn't help herself; the fact that he had no memory of their friendship didn't make it any less joyful to see him again.

"You must be Chloe," he half-laughed, returning the hug and raising his eyebrows questioningly over Chloe's shoulder at Beca, who nodded. He then pulled back, making sure to take a good look at Beca's alleged latest conquest, and whistled. "Wow, you're _really_ pretty."

Chloe smiled and shook her head. "Always the charmer, Swanson."

Beca snorted at the comment but then saw Jesse's hands placed precariously low on Chloe's waist after their hug. She knew Jesse wasn't the type to hit on other girls while in a committed relationship, but that didn't stop her from rolling her eyes and calling him out on it. "Heard from your girlfriend lately?" she asked pointedly.

"That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about," he said quickly, removing his hands from Chloe and placing them behind his back. "I was thinking of asking Aubrey to—"

"Wait, you and Aubrey got together?!" Chloe shrieked excitedly. "How could this not be the first thing you told me?!" she added, turning to Beca and smacking her on the shoulder.

"Ow! Easy there, Red," laughed Beca. "If I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes, I wouldn't have believed it either."

"Hey!" protested Jesse. "What's so unbelievable about me and Aubrey—?"

"What's with all the noise so early in the morning?" came a disgruntled groan from behind Jesse.

Stacie's head—and _only_ her head, attached to a _very_ long neck—slid in through the doorway. Her sleep mask was pulled up to the top of her head, revealing a scowling face.

"Stacie!" exclaimed Chloe, hopping up and down excitedly. "Get the rest of your body in here so I can give you a proper hug!"

"Well, how can I say no to such a gorgeous redhead?" The elastic brunette returned to her normal form and the two embraced tightly, with Stacie mouthing, " _This is the girl you turned down?_ " at Beca over the redhead's shoulder.

Having zero skill in lip-reading, Beca deadpanned, "I have no idea what you're saying."

Pulling back, Stacie smiled back at Chloe. "Nice to finally meet you, Chloe."

"Whoa, Chloe's here?" came a new, huskier voice from the room across the hallway.

Cynthia Rose's dark pink hair clashed fantastically with her neon green pajamas, but that didn't dampen the bright smile on Chloe's face at seeing her. Once Cynthia Rose had rubbed the sleep from her eyes, she widened them upon seeing their visitor. "Damn, girl. Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?"

"More like hell," laughed Chloe, wrapping her arms around her friend. "So I guess compliments flow freely before breakfast, huh?"

"Only when they are well-deserved," winked Stacie.

Chloe's cheeks were pink, partly from the compliments and partly from the excitement of seeing her friends again. Though she knew that they didn't remember her, she was glad that their reunion was a lot happier than her reunion with Beca, although it probably helped that they had a fair bit of warning.

She bit her lip excitedly and turned back to Cynthia Rose. "This might sound totally weird but could you do a card trick?" she gushed. "You used to do a new one every week and I still can't figure out how—"

"I don't know," Cynthia Rose feigned reluctance, "I left the cards in my room, it's not like I can whip one out of thin air—oh, wait."

Chloe squealed and clapped her hands as the former gambler and traveling magician did just that. The others, used to seeing their friend's sleight of hand tricks, focused instead on observing the redhead's infectious enthusiasm. At least, Beca thought they _all_ were watching Chloe as intently as she was, but when she turned away from the happy redhead, she saw Jesse and Stacie smirking at her with raised eyebrows. (Cynthia Rose was busy showing Chloe that, no, the cards weren't hidden under her pajama sleeves.)

The smile Beca didn't realize had grown so wide slid off her face. "What?"

Saving her from further interrogation was Charlene, who came bounding up to them with her phone in hand. " _Chloe_! Good, you're here—yes, she's here," the woman added to whoever was on the other end of the call. "Jack and Gail are worried _sick_ about you, Chloe."

Chloe winced guiltily. "Do they want me to come home?"

Charlene paused, listening to Gail's instructions. "No, you can stay. They have a lot of meetings this morning but they will be arriving here at Barden with the Professor, Luke, and Aubrey later today."

"They're coming back?" Jesse asked excitedly. "They must have good news then!"

"Don't get your hopes up," warned Charlene after hanging up. "Speaking of hopes, you two," she pointed at Beca and Jesse, "have your final exams after lunch. The last thing we need is the media reporting that we aren't a real school, so I'm expecting you both to do well. Now, hurry downstairs. It's impolite to let our guest starve."

* * *

"Whoa, what happened here?" asked Chloe, looking between the cereal boxes and Pop Tarts scattered on the table and the now empty buffet table that used to be laden with a variety of breakfast dishes every morning.

"We had to let the staff go," explained Beca, "so the food supply depends on whoever's in charge of shopping for the week…"

"Which was Beca," added Jesse as he set the table. "I didn't know they still made TV dinners until she took home a shopping cart full of them."

Beca shrugged unapologetically. "I thought it would encourage us to stop eating together all the time. We're getting too clingy."

"And speaking of getting clingy," said Stacie, sliding into the seat beside Chloe, "we have lots of time to make up for, don't we?"

"I'm glad you feel that way," said Chloe, looking relieved. "I was worried things would be awkward."

"Don't worry, we won't spaz out like Beca did," sniggered Jesse, taking the seat directly across Chloe's. His comment earned him a scowl from his best friend.

Not wanting to continue down this conversation, Beca asked, "What did you barge into my room for this morning anyway?"

Jesse rolled his eyes. "Way to change the subject, Becs. But thanks for reminding me! I was going to ask if you guys wanna crash our old high school's prom this Friday."

" _What_?"

All heads turned to Jesse in surprise and amusement. A high school prom was so far out of their minds that most of them had to remind themselves what a prom even was.

"I've been dreaming about senior prom ever since—"

"You were a little girl?" interjected Beca.

Jesse flipped her off and continued, "But then Beca and I transferred at the last minute. I think it'd be cool if we crashed our old high school's prom. They probably think we're all freaks now that the story broke—"

"I hoped I'd never have to tell you this, dude," said Beca in a mockingly solemn tone, "but they always thought you and I were freaks."

"Hear me out!" Jesse waved his hands to silence the laughter. "Seeing us there might _humanize_ the mutant issue. They'll look at us and think, 'hey, these guys aren't so bad after all!'"

"… after we disrupt their prom?" Cynthia Rose asked skeptically.

"Well, when you say it like that—"

"Good morning, turds!" greeted Bumper, strutting into the dining hall. "Please, no need to stand up on my account—well, _hello_ there."

Bumper stopped halfway into taking a seat to ogle at the newcomer. Chloe hadn't interacted with Bumper much during her time at Barden, but she knew from her friends that he was pretty much an insufferable pig. "Hi, Bumper," she nevertheless said politely.

"My reputation precedes me, I see," he said with a swagger. "But I thought we weren't recruiting anymore. Who are you and what are your powers?" he asked in his standard greeting for new students.

Chloe turned to Beca with a confused expression, and the brunette quickly leaned in to whisper in her ear. "We didn't tell _everyone_ about you yet."

Chloe gave an imperceptible nod and turned back to Bumper, who had an eyebrow raised at the their interaction. "Um, I'm Chloe. Telekinesis."

Bumper made a face that suggested he was mildly impressed, before turning to Jesse. "So what's this I hear about gatecrashing a prom?" he asked, taking a bite out of Jesse's Pop Tart. "Whatever it is, I'm in for some alcohol-induced dirty dancing. Whaddaya say, Chloe?"

Chloe was slightly taken aback by Bumper's brashness, so she instinctively looked at Beca for support, but the brunette was busy burning holes into Bumper's head with her eyes. (Figuratively, of course. She didn't have that power.)

"Actually, Beca's taking Chloe," Stacie said bluntly, in a tone that suggested she thought she was doing them both a favor.

Beca tore her eyes away from Bumper and looked past Chloe at Stacie in horror. Chloe did the same, worried that Stacie's comment would trigger something in Beca. Then, twisting her head the other way, Chloe captured Beca's attention and gave her a look that told her it was okay if she didn't want to.

"Whatevs," Bumper shrugged indifferently, tossing the crust part of the Pop Tart back onto Jesse's plate. "Just text me the deets, I'm going out."

"Where are you going?" Cynthia Rose asked, not out of genuine interest or concern, but because the students were asked to stay at Barden at all times except for school and groceries.

"Who are you, my _mom_?" snorted Bumper before making his way to the garage without a glance back.

"Wait, does that mean you guys are in?" Jesse asked expectantly.

"We'll talk about it when the rest get back, okay, Jesse?" said Beca with an air of finality. "There's a chance we might not be in the mood later anyway."

The others nodded in agreement and turned back to their breakfast. Whether they intended to or not, Jesse, Stacie, and Cynthia Rose began conversation among themselves that allowed Beca and Chloe to have their own.

"I'm fine, don't freak out," assured Beca, amused that she thought she was the one in this situation who _less_ needed to calm down.

"I'm just worried. I don't want to rush you into anything you're not comfortable with," said Chloe.

"It's just prom," Beca reasoned to both herself and the redhead. "Friends can take friends to prom when they don't have dates, right?"

"You're right… I'm being silly."

"No, you're being thoughtful," corrected Beca.

Chloe just smiled and, not for the first time that day, Beca's eyes uncontrollably flitted down to her lips and back up to her brilliant blue eyes.

* * *

Time flew surprisingly quickly after breakfast. To keep their minds off the impending arrival of their friends and functional guardians, the students adjourned to the living room to get to know Chloe (again) and to ask how, why, and when she got there. Beca and Chloe deliberately kept the interrogation from touching on their relationship, but that didn't stop Jesse and Stacie from bringing it up every chance they got.

"So you spent ten years of your life virtually asleep?" Cynthia Rose asked in awe.

"And if you'd been in those memory modifying machines for ten years, that means you missed your own prom, too," Jesse pointed out, waggling his eyebrows.

"Good. That also means Beca won't have anyone to be measured against this Friday," Stacie added slyly.

Beca threw the two a glare for the umpteenth time but Chloe seamlessly transitioned to her explanation. "Actually, even though the memories were fake, they _felt_ very real to me at the time," she said, "which is why Jack, Gail, and I work so well as a family already. And, technically, I _did_ have a prom—"

"You did?" Beca asked in spite of herself. "Who—what was it like?"

"Nothing special," shrugged Chloe. "Or substantial. He was captain of the football team, honor student, volunteer—the works. Gail made it so rated-G, though, I remember I was at home by midnight."

"Wow, he seems like a stand up guy," whistled Stacie. "Hey, Becs, what's the organization _you_ donate all that time and money to?"

Jesse suppressed a grin and followed up on the assist. "Oh, Stace, you're thinking of Taco Bell—"

Losing a bit of her nerve, Beca flicked her finger and sent a minuscule ball of air into Jesse's open mouth and down his throat, sending him into a coughing fit. Through his choking gasps, however, Jesse exchanged triumphant smirks with Stacie. Feeling nerved herself, Chloe quickly moved the conversation along and asked them about their adventures within the Realm of Darkness.

They continued to swap stories and, after they all had their lunch, Beca and Jesse headed off to the library where they would take the test in silence under the surveillance of the most responsible person currently in the mansion: Cynthia Rose. And that left Chloe alone with Stacie for the next hour and a half, which greatly discomforted Beca as she and Jesse walked to the library, and also reminded her to dole out some punishment.

"Ow!" Jesse yelped, doubling over and clutching his bruised ribs.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" hissed Beca. "Stop trying to bring up the relationship—weren't you listening when I told you guys why I wasn't ready? It's a freakin' miracle she wants to be friends with me now, why are you trying to ruin it?"

"Because," Jesse grimaced through the pain, "we can all see it on your face, Beca. You _want_ her. And I don't just mean in the sexy way—"

"Just lay off of it, okay?"

"Beca—"

"All right, time to take the test, guys," announced Cynthia Rose, walking into the room and giving them each their test materials. "You have exactly ninety minutes to finish it and, no, I won't be giving you an extension just because we're friends. If I catch any of you cheating, I will literally blow up your desks."

* * *

"Hey, I'm sorry about all that," apologized Stacie, following Chloe into the kitchen to put the empty glasses in the sink. "It's just that it's not everyday we get a rise out of Beca like that. She usually doesn't care." When Chloe struggled to find something to say (which clearly meant that she was not quite forgiven), Stacie added sincerely, "She's never been this… _happy_ over someone's presence in the time that I've known her. There's clearly something special between you two—"

"But that's what I'm worried about," Chloe cut in. " _I_ can see it, _you_ can see it, but Beca needs time to see it, too. I don't want to pressure her into it, so we're starting again as friends."

"Oh… I get it. Again, I'm sorry," said Stacie. "If it's any consolation, Beca _is_ working through her issues. And I think you're exactly who she needs right now."

"Thanks. I appreciate you saying that," smiled Chloe. "But enough about us, how have you been? The last time I saw you, my Heartless did quite a number on you. I was really worried..."

Stacie had to pause and think about how to answer that question. Since everyone stayed cooped up at Barden for most of the past few weeks, there wasn't really a need to suspect that any one of them was going through something the others wouldn't notice. But now that Stacie thought about it, there weren't a lot of things going well in her life at the moment.

"Fine," she nevertheless answered. "Things are just fine."

* * *

"Beca! _Beca_!" Jesse grabbed Beca's shoulder and spun her around. "I'm really sorry, okay? I didn't think you'd be this upset about it."

Beca relaxed her shoulders and sighed. "It's okay, Jesse, maybe I was overreacting a bit. It's just—you're right; I _do_ want her. I want her to be my _friend_ ," she clarified quickly. "I don't understand it, but I feel this _pull_ whenever I'm around her. Don't you?"

Jesse genuinely thought about it before shaking his head. "She seems like a really cool person but I wouldn't put her in the top three things I constantly think about, to be honest. But she clearly is in yours," he couldn't resist adding carefully.

"She is," Beca surprised herself in admitting, "but we have a history—a bad one. I don't feel right rushing back into it without making sure I do it right this time."

Jesse opened his mouth to ask if Beca was already considering getting back together with Chloe but was interrupted by Cynthia Rose approaching them with an announcement.

"They're here," she said. "We're all supposed to meet in the antechamber in two minutes."

* * *

Exactly two minutes later, another reunion of sorts occurred in the chamber outside the Professor's office. Luke and Aubrey were welcomed by their teammates, who could all see a notable change in their blonde friends' demeanors from just a week in D.C. Luke was decidedly less cheerful than they had ever known him, while Aubrey let nature take its course and was wound up tighter than ever. Not even Jesse's affectionate embrace could relax her back into her pre-D.C. self.

This was why Chloe opted for an awkward smile and wave, instead of the warmer greeting she wanted to give them, on the way to her stern-faced foster parents. "Hi," she mumbled, avoiding their eyes.

Gail uncrossed her arms. "The next time you want to run away, the _least_ you could do is take your phone with you."

Chloe looked up and sheepishly took the device from Gail's outstretched hand. She had honestly forgotten it since she only had three contacts anyway.

"So we can track you down wherever you are," added Jack, less seriously than his wife, "which is apparently possible now with these flat, button-less phones."

The corners of Chloe's mouth twitched upward. It was nice to hear something funny—and not the words 'AMG,' 'the bill,' or even 'fucking lawyers'—from them.

Gail took the twitch as a good sign and said softly, "Chloe, we're sorry we've been a bit icy lately and not living up to our promise of being a happy family."

"We've all been under a lot of stress but that doesn't mean we can just ignore you," said Jack, "especially not when we have such a tremendous favor to ask you."

Chloe cocked her head to the side. "What is it?"

Gail and Jack exchanged smiles. "If you had just waited 'til morning to leave, we could've surprised you earlier," said Gail.

"Since you're technically an adult now, we can't call ourselves your foster parents anymore," continued Jack. "So we'd been meeting with an adoption attorney and—if you're still up for it—we'd like to make it official."

Chloe raised her eyebrows at the two of them, waiting in suspense. "I already said yes to this, like, months ago so forgive me for not being as emotional as you might have expected," she deadpanned.

"We just needed to be sure you still wanted it," laughed Gail. "You've had a taste of freedom now and, like Jack said, you _are_ an adult. You don't really need us to be your parents."

"Of course I do! Who would pass up the opportunity to inherit your _billion_ -dollar company?" smirked Chloe.

"Would you just come here and give us a hug already?" said Jack, opening his arms impatiently.

Chloe broke into a huge grin and allowed herself to be engulfed in their group hug.

* * *

Beca had been watching the exchange between Chloe and her soon-to-be parents through the space between Stacie and Aubrey, and her stomach had flipped when she saw Chloe's smirk for the first time. Having mastered the art of the sexy smirk herself, Beca greatly appreciated the way Chloe performed hers. While Beca's radiated self-confidence and, as she liked to put it, 'bad-assery,' Chloe's was playful and inviting.

She couldn't help thinking about how well they complemented each other.

"So that's Chloe, huh?" observed Luke, following Beca's gaze. "She's really something."

Beca scoffed and turned to her friend. "You barely even met her."

"I based my judgment on the expression on your face when you look at her," smiled Luke. "Anyone with the ability to make the badass Beca Mitchell turn to mush is really something. Frankly, I think I was the last person to get even close—during that pool party at the start of term."

Beca rolled her eyes. "I was only staring because I couldn't believe you owned such a hideous shirt."

"Say what you will about my good sense in fashion—"

Luke's comeback was interrupted by the Professor emerging from his office with Charlene in tow as usual. "Sorry for keeping you all waiting," he said. "Although I would have loved to prolong your week of ignorant bliss, the time has come to inform you all of what's to come—hang on, where's Bumper?"

"He went out this morning and has been ignoring my calls or texts," said Cynthia Rose.

"Oh, well, I guess I'll leave it to you to explain everything to him," shrugged the Professor. "So, let's get this over with: After over a week of intense lobbying, debating, and amending, the Mutant Registration bill sponsored by Senator Robert Edwards—"

"Remember the dickhead's name," said Jack, eliciting laughs from the students.

The Professor nodded in agreement before continuing. "Anyway, we've managed to add more than a few hurdles to get it to a point where we could all be happy—"

"What point is that?" Stacie asked immediately.

The Professor adjusted his glasses and squared his shoulders. "The final bill—at least the one that will be voted on this Friday—has the following provisions, simplified for your benefit…" He took the clipboard from Charlene's hands and began to read. "First, you have to register yourselves publicly as mutants, giving up your name, occupation, place of residence, and—I'm sorry—your immediate family's information as well."

That was quickly met with protests from the students (besides those that already knew this) and Gail had to step in in to calm them down.

"We made sure that it wouldn't affect their personal or professional lives, and _their_ information will strictly be kept private," she assured. "Technically, they could find that information illegally even without the provision, but we needed it in there to make sure that even if they _could_ go after your families, they _wouldn't_."

"It was a necessary sacrifice," the Professor added.

Most of the students let it go. Stacie, of course, didn't. "What's to stop us from giving them fake names?" she asked.

"Stacie, it requires the family to be present in signing the paperwork during the registration process," Gail explained patiently. "Otherwise, it won't be considered valid."

"But now that we're on the topic of punishment," the Professor scratched his nose uncomfortably, "let me preface everything else I list by saying that _if_ the bill passes into a law, non-compliance will be, by definition, illegal... You could be imprisoned."

"And obviously, we do _not_ encourage you to break the law," added Jack, "especially while they currently have no plan for a mutant-capable prison, which means that you might actually be worse off than a regular inmate."

The students gulped audibly. "What else can't we do?" Beca asked hoarsely.

"Actually we were able to fight off the really stupid provisions," said Gail, trying (and failing) to look cheerful, "so there actually aren't many things you _can't_ do."

"But you will have to give up quite a bit of your privacy," said the Professor, taking the optimism down a peg, "depending on your determined threat level."

"For every registered mutant, the Department of Homeland Security will assign him or her a threat level to determine the appropriate degree of punishment and surveillance," Jack began to explain. "There are four categories. Category Zero is for mutants whose powers are essentially harmless."

"For instance, people who can change the color of objects or grow their hair faster," supplied Luke. "The type of mutants who have no reason to enroll at Barden."

"Right," nodded Jack. "Category One mutants are those who _could_ seriously injure others but through ways that can still be suppressed by ordinary law enforcement."

"These might be people with heightened physical abilities," supplied Aubrey, "who mainly use either their bodies or crafted weapons to inflict serious injury, but whose powers alone don't make them invulnerable to basic law enforcement methods like bullets, tear gas, et cetera."

"Category Two mutants are those who could _kill_ others or cause mass destruction, and would require special defense measures to suppress," continued Jack.

"For instance, people whose powers are on the more supernatural side," supplied Luke, "like elementals."

"The idea is that, even if Jesse were to hypothetically induce an earthquake to kill hundreds of people while surrounding himself in a bulletproof cage—" Jesse's eyes widened at his girlfriend's hypothetical situation "—there still exist more powerful, military-grade weapons that _could_ take him down."

"And that brings us to Category Three mutants," said Jack. "Mutants who, after exhausting all effort, cannot be stopped by any form of human intervention."

Luke and Aubrey exchanged looks with Jack, Gail, and the Professor. It seemed neither wanted to explain further, until Aubrey took the responsibility. "We haven't come across mutants with such power," she said slowly, "but it had to be added as a catch-all category since threat levels will likely be assigned on the basis of defense preparedness rather than the mutant's actual ability."

"It's also worth nothing that your category can change," the Professor added. "As it has been made clear by institutions like ours, powers _can_ be developed. You could go up a category or, conversely, if the government discovers easier ways to suppress mutants, go down a category."

"What do you mean by 'discovers easier ways'?" asked Jesse. "Like, if they build weapons against us?"

"A controversial provision in the bill was the call to create anti-mutant weapons," explained Aubrey. Seeing the angered looks on her friends' faces, she added, "It's just the terminology, but we made sure that they would be humane and only used for suppression—not violence."

Beca rubbed her temples in frustration. "How are they even going to come up with this stuff? They're going to need to understand the mutant gene, won't they? That means testing."

The adults looked to Beca in surprise; they didn't expect her to catch on this quickly. "You're right, Beca," said Jack, "which is why we made sure that involuntary testing would be illegal. However, they countered it with an incentive for mutants who would offer themselves up for the research."

"What incentive?" asked Stacie. "Lowering their category?"

"Anonymity," corrected Gail. "They would still have to register but in exchange for being taken in for tests, nobody besides the Department of Homeland Security would know that they were mutants. Not the public, or even their families."

The students were silent for a while, all thinking the same thing: they might not have the option anymore, but to a mutant who wanted to continue living his or her life normally, it was a pretty good deal—especially if their powers had low threat levels—but that left those who _had_ powers that merited the need for anti-mutant weapons feeling betrayed by their own kind. And that was never a good thing.

Turning away from those depressing thoughts, Beca then asked, "What kind of surveillance would we be under exactly? Would there have to be someone following us around all the time?"

"Mutant surveillance has two components: check-ups and monitoring," explained the Professor. "Check-ups are mandatory but discretionary—an agent from Homeland Security will decide, based on available information, when and if a check-up is needed. Monitoring would be done through an electronic tagging system, which they hope to develop further if the bill gets passed to include whatever suppressant is invented."

"All mutants will have to undergo check-ups, but only Categories Two and Three would need monitoring," added Luke. "As an additional measure, institutions that offer sanctuary for mutants, like Barden, would themselves be under surveillance—"

"Wait, so they're keeping Barden open?" asked Jesse. "But then I guess we won't be allowed to train and stuff, huh?"

"Actually, we will," said Aubrey.

Stacie frowned. "That doesn't make any sense. They obviously think we're threats, why wouldn't they get rid of the thing that makes us so?"

The Professor glanced at Jack and Gail before responding. "We were offered a deal by the agency that was behind the Project ten years ago," he said, instantly causing the students to tense up and listen attentively. "Barden as an organization will be absorbed by the agency and set up as the official training ground for mutants."

"I'm sorry, the _what_?"

"What do we get in return?"

"What agency is this?"

Aubrey shot her teammates a stern look to silence their rapid-fire questioning.

"We will be allowed to continue training mutants—in fact, it will be encouraged," said the Professor, "but in exchange the Department of Defense would also be allowed to recruit from our numbers."

"Recruit?"

"Into a specialized combat unit."

Four pairs of mouths dropped in unison. "Holy shit," whispered Jesse. "Things just got real." He cleared his throat and asked rather hopefully, "This is only if the bill gets passed, right? You don't think…?"

"We've done as much as we could and this is the result," the Professor said gravely. "There's always hope but… there's also a reason why we decided to return home."

"Barring any further amendments in the Senate, this bill is nevertheless airtight in protecting your basic freedom," Gail said firmly. "Aubrey and Luke have made sure that all other provisions do so. You can ask them all about it."

"But we're not sugarcoating it anymore," Jack said in his deep, gravelly voice. "Congress is itching to pass this bill— _any_ bill—to settle the public's anxiety over the mutant issue. There is a high chance that this will pass."

"I know all of you have been wondering about what the future— _your_ future—looks like," said the Professor, looking at each of his students and Chloe in the eye, "but as an outsider to your plight, I cannot give you the answer you need." He then turned to his first ever students. The two exchanged brief looks of surprise before coming up with their sincere answers.

"Hope. That's the future," said Aubrey. Her friends were surprised by her optimism, so she added, "The fight is far from over, guys. I'm confident we can keep fighting."

Luke caught Beca's eye and followed up with a simple, "Change. That's what I see coming."

"Hope? Change?" Cynthia Rose let out a laugh. "What are you guys, an Obama campaign?"

While everyone else laughed to release the tension in the room, and Beca wondered if Luke had caught her eye on purpose or not. Then she remembered something that particularly involved her. "Wait, what about the Heartless?"

The Professor once again looked toward Jack and Gail before answering, "The agency will aid us in handling the Heartless through the combat units we talked about earlier. But we are looking into finding a way to stop them from returning altogether."

Beca nodded and heard Chloe softly cry, "Oh!" with an expression of realization on her face. Beca assumed that, having been to the end of the Darkness and back with Kommissar as her tour guide, Chloe must know something about it. And after learning about the nature of Kommissar and Pieter, Beca assumed they were the only ones who knew how to do end the Heartless invasions.

Beca made a mental note to ask Chloe if she knew anything about it later; in the meantime she joined the others in letting everything sink in. Apparently, it had sunk in a lot faster for Jesse, who wasted no time bringing up another topic. "So, there's this prom on Friday—"

Beca, Stacie, and Cynthia Rose groaned at the interruption and pelted him with throw pillows from the couch. Chloe laughed while Charlene and those who had come in from out of state raised their eyebrows in confusion.

* * *

 **FRIDAY - Prom**

Despite popular opinion on the matter, the Professor actually took Jesse's side and suggested that the students do attend the prom as a sort of last hurrah, since the voting was expected to occur simultaneous with the dance. The announcement drew excitement from a surprising fraction of the students. Even though some (Aubrey) were concerned about breaking the rules, and others (Beca) never missed a chance to ask, "What's the point?" everyone else was particularly excited about the implicit statement they were making.

For the first time in a long while, the Barden mansion was abuzz with excitement of the good kind while they prepared for the party. Jesse got in touch with a loyal friend who gave them the details they needed to crash it. And, for Beca and Chloe's sake, nobody made a big deal out of who was taking whom, but entered the casino-themed high school auditorium that Friday night, dressed to impress, as a group of singles.

"Wow, this is way better than the fake prom I had," said Chloe, marveling at the attention to detail on the decorations.

"Are those _real_ slot machines?" Beca squinted toward the other side of the auditorium, where some vaguely familiar people were pulling levers.

"They sure are!" said an enthusiastic voice from behind them.

The group of six turned around and saw a sandy-haired young man in a white tuxedo grinning at them. "Jesse," he greeted, shaking his friend's hand, "it's been way too long, man! Hey, Beca," he nodded politely at Beca before asking, "So what do you guys think of the theme?"

"Is there _actual_ gambling going on here?" Cynthia Rose cut in, her eyes darting around the place. They knew the theme would be Casino Royale but they hadn't expected it to be so realistic.

"Yup! But we play for chocolate coins." Jesse's friend handed out pouches of the candy. "The lights will be kept pretty dim so the chaperones won't suspect there are non-students here."

"Thanks, man, we owe you one," said Jesse, instinctively grabbing onto Cynthia Rose's belt to prevent her from sneaking off to the poker table.

The sandy-haired teen raised his eyebrow and leaned in closer to Jesse, whispering, "Dude, you promised you'd set me up with the sexy, flexible brunette, remember?"

"What was that?" Cynthia Rose stopped struggling when she passed and heard the boy's whisper.

"Nothing!" Jesse said quickly, making a complete turn and urging Cynthia Rose toward the tables. "CR, weren't you just leaving? Bye! Dude, _be cool_ ," he added to his friend, who nodded coolly and turned back to the rest of them.

"I think it's great you guys came," he grinned. "You know, ever since we found out what Barden was _really_ about, the school's been split on the issue. I hope seeing you here might open some minds a bit."

"What've the other half been saying?" asked Beca.

"Basically that you guys should be locked up until the government figures out how to get rid of your powers," he replied casually. "But some of us think the media is overhyping everything, making you seem more dangerous than you are."

"Smart guy," winked Stacie.

Jesse's friend smirked at the attention. "But just in case, we made sure they'd be a bit distracted but, uh, I'm sure you'd be pretty _hard_ —I mean, difficult—to ignore."

Beca rolled her eyes as he openly flirted with Stacie and gently nudged Chloe. "Wanna leave these two and go check out the games?"

"Yes, please. I think Aubrey's going to blow any minute now," the redhead whispered back. Beca looked over at the blonde but before she could question Aubrey's narrowed eyes and pursed lips Chloe had started backing away and pulling Beca with her.

"Is CR going to be okay though?" she asked. "I remember she had a gambling problem."

"She's fine," assured Beca, her voice returning to normal volume once they were out of earshot. "We play poker after missions sometimes. She's probably just excited to have something else to play—like craps, whatever the hell that is."

They walked around the auditorium (going fortunately unnoticed by the other students) trying out the slot machines and making increasingly high-stakes bets while playing roulette until Beca ran out of chocolate coins.

"Damn, I was so close," she clucked.

"You _really_ weren't," Chloe disagreed, her cheeks pink and aching from laughing the whole time. "But here, you can have some of mine."

Beca shook her head. "Nah, we gotta save some for later. I could use a drink though."

"Let's go then." Chloe linked her arm with Beca's and they made their way to the punch table.

"I gotta hand it to my old school," Beca began, as she poured Chloe a drink, "they sure know how to be classy—"

"Mm," Chloe brought the drink down from her lips, "the punch has a lot of alcohol in it."

"—and then find a way to make me immediately take it back," Beca sighed, offering to take Chloe's drink from her.

"No, it's actually pretty good," she said, taking longer sip before wincing. "But, boy, that's a strong drink."

"Can't handle your liquor, Red?" teased Beca. "That's not very Bond girl-like."

Chloe scoffed. "And what Bond girl loses all her chocolate coins by betting on red five _three_ times in a row?"

"Excuse me? Who are you calling a Bond girl?" Beca fished for something in the cleavage of her black dress—much to Chloe's enjoyment—and pulled out an eye patch. "I'm a Bond _villain_."

Chloe threw her head back and laughed as Beca slipped the eye patch on. "I wanted to get a fluffy white cat but," Beca shrugged, "I didn't feel like carrying it around all night."

Chloe shook her head. "You are such a dork."

Beca took a moment to savor that word. She was used to being called a badass or (often self-inflicted) an asshole, so 'dork' was a refreshing change. They stood side by side, sipping their drinks (which, Beca had to admit, _were_ kind of strong—she guessed that was the 'distraction' Jesse's friend had meant) and keeping an eye out for what their friends were doing.

Jesse and Aubrey were on the dance floor, close to where Stacie and Jesse's friend were grinding against each other. Luke was engaged in an intense poker standoff with Cynthia Rose, which Beca knew he was likely to lose. She turned to ask Chloe if she wanted to watch Cynthia Rose make a spectacular win over Luke but then saw that Chloe was looking the other way.

 _Finally._

Now was her chance to look at Chloe, _really_ look at her, without anyone around to call her on it. And seeing at Chloe in that silvery blue dress, with her hair done up to keep away from her face, Beca could tell that she was in the presence of true beauty—the kind that didn't inspire envy or a sense of inferiority. It was the beauty that poets would spend their lives trying to describe, painters mimic, and dancers perform.

"The decorations are fantastic," murmured Chloe, looking back at the elaborate stage, where a small crowd had gathered for the coronation. "In another life, you probably would have snuck in last night to vandalize them all," she added as an amusing afterthought.

Beca blinked. "You know about that?"

Chloe turned to face Beca again and smirked. "I have good memory, unlike _you_."

It became painfully clear, when Chloe poked Beca lightly on the shoulder and the intro to a ballad played through the speakers, signaling the quintessential prom slow dance to begin, that it was also the kind of beauty Beca didn't deserve.

"I'm really glad you still wanna be friends with me," she blurted out without a plan, "even though I was a complete asshole to you."

Chloe's smirk faded and she shook her head insistently. "You have to forgive yourself for that, Becs. It's not your fault you didn't remember me."

Beca nodded, reminding herself not to confess that she was referring to how she had used Chloe. Although, being with her now, Beca was slowly finding it hard to believe that she could have led Chloe on like that without eventually _actually_ falling in love with her.

 _Wait a second—_

Before Beca could reevaluate that passing thought, Chloe brought her face closer to hers, and whispered conspiratorially. "I'm really glad you asked, though. I think we're going to be really fast friends."

Beca couldn't agree more. Sure, Chloe already had a head start in getting to know her, but even if she didn't, Beca could tell that Chloe's bubby charm and sense of humor mixed well with her own. "Well, you saw me naked," she joked with a wink.

Or maybe it wasn't a _perfect_ mix, because Chloe pulled back with a bemused expression on her face. "I have?"

Beca paused for a moment, waiting for the punch line, but what came out of the redhead's mouth was another question. "Hang on, do you remember something _I_ don't?"

Beca shook her head vigorously. "N-no! It's just that we were in a relationship so… you know?"

Chloe blinked a few times before bursting out laughing, a little too loudly. "We never had sex!"

The students on their way to the punch table stopped abruptly and looked at the pair before awkwardly shuffling in the other direction. Chloe covered her face and shook her head in embarrassment though her shoulders didn't stop shaking from laughter, but before Beca could feel any sort of emotion over the revelation, a shout from the end of the auditorium called their attention.

"Beca! Chloe!" Luke and Cynthia Rose were standing by the entrance and were shortly joined by Jesse, Aubrey, and Stacie.

"It's done," Luke announced once Beca and Chloe had joined them. "The bill passed. The President will sign it into law first thing in the morning. Registration will begin on Monday."

* * *

 **Response to reviews:**

 **xcombixgirlx** (Nov. 5) - Thank you! :)

 **Psychic Guest** (Nov. 5) - Haha, don't worry about it! I've made it my mission to make sure your psychic powers can never guess what's coming. You are my villain haha. The Kommissar and Pieter storyline was one of the hints I wanted to add in the Epilogue (see last **A/N** ) but it might have been information overload haha. Rest assured, they will definitely be back. I made the team reunion happy! We can have more fun with that next season. Brace yourself, Staubrey in the Epilogue. Lastly, thank you! :)

 **Another Random Human** (Nov. 5) - Yeah, you wouldn't expect John to have any sense of moral decency, huh. As you wished, I put tons of Chloe and Beca interaction in the finale. Thanks! :)

 **Maggie** (Nov. 6) - Gahh! I really want to reveal the Kommissar plot haha but sadly it must wait for Season Three. Yeah, Beca is wrong on so many accounts haha but I hope this finale made up for it. It's fun to write the Jack, Gail, and Chloe stuff because they have such a flexible relationship (not really parents but quite parental) for inappropriate stuff haha. Thank you! :)

 **bmoney** (Nov. 7) - Thank you! I know, I'm trying not to throw in every single universe in my head! Haha. For now, let's stick with X-Men and KH. I made sure you didn't have to wait for Season Three to get your answers haha. Thanks again! :)

 **RJRMovieFan** (Nov. 9) - Thank you! :) Just so you're not wondering anymore, my current theory is that Beca's heart strongly reacted to _Nobody_ Chloe because of the fact that she had no heart but was still a trace of the original Chloe. Beca's heart sort of compensated for the both of them when Chloe had a Nobody, which was why it didn't have such a profound effect (at least instantaneously) when she reunited with a whole Chloe. But as you can see in this chapter, that connection is inevitable. :) I agree! I hope this chapter brought a little light into their lives. Thank you very much for your review! :)

* * *

 **A/N:** So that's where Season Two must end. It has been an odd chunk, I admit, because I used it to introduce _a lot_ of plot stuff (which was why I said before that I couldn't wait to get to the end of it haha) so that Season Three could go off smoothly. I hope the progression of Beca's feelings for Chloe wasn't too sudden; I tried to make it a subtle build. (At least in this chapter, not in the Epilogue.)

A note on the references: Kudos to anyone who got the 30 Rock reference earlier! Jack is actually loosely based on Jack Donaghy, since Elizabeth Banks (who plays Gail in PP) played his love interest in 30 Rock. The senator's name is actually not important, it's just a lame attempt at referencing Senator Robert Edward Kelly from X-Men, who was responsible for legislation against mutants.

* * *

 **EPILOGUE**

* * *

 **SATURDAY - Change**

Aubrey heard a knock on her door and looked up from the profile she was reading on her desk to see Stacie casually leaning on the frame. "Hey, Stace," she greeted absent-mindedly. "Come on in. Can I help you with something?"

Stacie walked in and went straight for Aubrey's wardrobe. She fished out an outfit and tossed her the clothes. "Get dressed, blondie, we're going out for lunch," she said before plopping herself down on Aubrey's bed with her arms behind her head to wait.

"What? Stacie, I'm too busy right now, I'm sorry. You guys just go without me, I'll order Chinese or something."

"Nope. Just you and me," Stacie replied simply, keeping her eyes on the ceiling.

Aubrey stared at her for a moment before wordlessly complying. She got up from her desk and into her bathroom to change and, moments later, she stepped out, causing Stacie to tilt her head in her direction. "Perfect," the brunette grinned. "Let's go."

Stacie led the way to the mansion's garage, which was now empty except for Luke's red convertible and Bumper's Rubicon, and pulled Luke's keys out from the pocket of her leather jacket.

"Did you ask permission for those?" Aubrey asked suspiciously.

Stacie only rolled her eyes in reply before leaping into the driver's seat. Aubrey caught the brunette's satisfied smirk as she got into the passenger's seat without any further coaxing. "So where are we going?" she asked, buckling up.

"You tell me," answered Stacie, accelerating out of the garage and through the makeshift road in the forest that they used to avoid the paparazzi. "You've been here longer than I have, where are the good places to eat?"

Aubrey couldn't remember the last time she'd been downtown for leisure. As second-in-command after Charlene over house-related concerns, Aubrey had always ensured that meals were taken care of in the kitchens. The last time she hadn't cared about meal plans was when—

"Oh, there's this great place Luke and I used to ride our bikes to after school when we were kids," she suggested. "It's not very popular so I don't think we'd have to worry about causing a scene."

"Sounds good. Lead the way."

They arrived at a small cottage restaurant near the outskirts of town moments later, and were led by an elderly waitress to a small, square wooden table with a red, checkered table cloth. For fun, Stacie had suggested Aubrey choose a surprise dish for her and vice-versa, but, while agreeing to pick for Stacie, the blonde wouldn't reciprocate the gesture, arguing that it didn't apply to her since she had already had everything on the menu.

Once their food was served, Stacie instantly regretted her suggestion. "What the fuck is this mess?" she asked after making sure the kind old waitress was out of earshot. She was looking down at a plate almost overflowing with food of different sizes, colors, and textures.

"It's traditional Southern soul food!"

"It's someone else's regurgitated meal served on a plate, that's what this is," retorted Stacie, poking at the soggy greens with a fork. She looked over at Aubrey's side of the table and saw a more pleasant-looking meal. "Switch with me!"

Aubrey laughed. "I ordered the same thing, Stacie. I just had them separate the food because I can't stand it when my food touches."

Stacie's jaw dropped. "You're seriously going to eat all of this? You're a health nut!"

"It's just once every couple of years," the blonde shrugged. "Trust me, it tastes better than it looks." To prove her point, Aubrey took the first bite but she wasn't prepared for the wave of flavor that overloaded her taste buds and triggered such a vivid memory of her carefree youth.

"You have a little nostalgia on your face," smirked Stacie.

Aubrey swallowed and wiped the corners of her mouth. "You have an unusual knack for bringing that out in me, you know?"

"What do you mean?"

Aubrey found herself choosing her words carefully. "There are things you do… that make me feel—"

"Hold that thought," interrupted Stacie. There was a glint in her eye that told Aubrey the diversion was intentional. "I want to take a picture of this hideous meal and do a before-and-after comparison."

"That's disgusting!"

"That's exactly my point."

* * *

"Jesse, you got a minute?"

Jesse turned away from his laptop, where he had been working on his college essay for Barden University. It was more for formality's sake, since he and Beca were assured a spot anyway, so he nodded at Luke. "Yeah, sure, let me just save this… What's up?"

"I need to show you something," said Luke, jerking his head down the hallway. "I think you'll find it very cool."

Jesse got up and followed Luke, who took him down a very familiar path—but one that they hadn't taken in months. "Are we having a training simulation?" he asked Luke curiously, as they took the underground corridor that led to the large metal room where, once upon a time, they had fought fake Heartless and each other.

"Nah, we're going to the control room." Luke pushed open the door the room that kept all the simulation technology. Numerous computer displays, buttons, and dials covered its desks, and there always seemed to be a whimsical beeping sound coming from somewhere.

"I know how to use the controls, Luke," reminded Jesse, watching as Luke switched on the computers. "I've done simulations alone before."

"That's not what I wanted to show you," Luke replied patiently, typing in a password at the prompt. " _This_ is what I wanted to show you."

Jesse looked up at the large screen. It looked like a simple search engine with a few additional options. "The Barden Institute's enchiridion—but Aubrey and I just call it the handbook," explained Luke. "It's all you need to know about training mutants."

Jesse's mouth dropped in awe and excitement. Suddenly his fingers were itching to press all the buttons.

"When Barden first started ten years ago, the Professor used to write his observations of Aubrey and me in a simple notebook," continued Luke, accessing what looked like scanned pages of lines upon lines of scribbled notes. "As she and I got older and more students joined us, we got to compile more observations. Eventually, the Professor and Charlene were able to map out certain similarities in the way our powers developed, which led to us creating the first standardized method of training."

Luke brought up another page of the enchiridion, showing a list of exercises that were familiar to Jesse during his first few weeks at Barden.

"We've gathered so much information on training methods and power development throughout the years that Aubrey and I thought about setting this up a few years ago. It has helped streamline training and develop your powers much faster than Aubrey's and mine had."

Jesse watched the screen as Luke selected a category labeled 'Manipulations' and opened up what looked like a network of abilities.

"You and I are excellent examples of how powers can overlap," grinned Luke, pointing to the closely related nodes 'earth' and 'metal,' "which means we could have a similar training regimen." He clicked on an icon and, indeed, Jesse saw similar exercises that he had recently begun.

"You were right. This is _insanely_ cool," breathed Jesse. "I can't believe you guys have studied this much about us."

"That's why it's important to keep doing your reports."

Jesse cowered guiltily. He was notorious for handing in late reports. But Luke then turned to him with a more serious expression and said, "Keeping this institution running is a difficult but incredibly important job."

Jesse resisted his confusion and returned the look just as seriously. "I understand that, Luke."

"Good." Luke cracked a smile. "Because normally I wouldn't allow a freshman to see the handbook."

"Wait, what do you mean?" asked Jesse. "Are you saying I get to _use_ it?"

"Use it, update it," shrugged Luke. "I expect a lot of young mutants will be coming to Barden soon and Aubrey will need someone to help her continue this."

* * *

After their lunch, Aubrey was surprised when Stacie took the road that headed for Turner Field instead of the one that led back to the institute. "Uh, where are we going?" she asked even though Stacie had already entered the parking lot.

"You like baseball, right?"

"Okay, your level of stalking is getting creepy."

Stacie rolled her eyes. "Get over yourself, blondie. You're crazy competitive, so it's natural that you like all sports. I just find baseball to be the most tolerable."

"Do you think anyone will recognize us though?" Aubrey asked anxiously.

"I already thought ahead," said Stacie, reaching for her purse in the backseat. "It's the Braves versus Pirates so I borrowed this from Beca… ta-da!"

Aubrey laughed and took Beca's eye-patch from Stacie's open palm.

"I bet you I could catch a foul ball no matter where it goes," Stacie challenged as they got out of Luke's car.

"I have no doubt you could, but I'd strangle you if you tried."

* * *

"You're… leaving?"

"It's not the first time a student has left this school," Luke said patiently.

"But you're not just _any_ student!" argued Jesse. "You're _Luke_! Why would you even _want_ to leave?"

"Things are changing—things already _have_ changed, Jesse. Unfortunately, as a result, I cannot stay here."

Jesse frowned. "Are you planning on not registering?"

"I don't think it's safe for you if I answer that."

"That's as good as a yes."

"That's your interpretation," shrugged Luke. "Jesse, the less you know the better. I'm only trying to protect you."

"I know," Jesse said quietly. "That's what you do. You protect us. You always have."

For the first time since they began this discussion, Luke looked regretful. But he didn't say anything.

"But we got what we wanted, didn't we?" Jesse asked, his face screwed up in confusion. "I mean, the MRA isn't great but it's the best we've got— _you_ fought for it!"

Luke ran a hand through his hair wearily. "There's more to this than the law, Jesse, but as much as I want to explain myself—there was only one reason I asked _you_ down here and showed you the book."

Jesse looked up in spite of himself to meet Luke's determined green eyes.

"I needed to be sure that Barden would be taken care of," said Luke. "I have no doubt that Aubrey or any of the girls could handle the responsibility of keeping things running but, Jesse, you are the most loyal, the most optimistic, and the most sensitive of us all. And that is what Barden needs. You have to care for each and every student that comes through those doors—train them, believe in them, and teach them to do _good things_ with their powers. It isn't always an easy job—you might get your fair share of Bumpers along the way—but, like I said, it's an important one."

Luke put his hand on Jesse's shoulder and said, "After seeing you grow these past months, I'm confident that you are the best person to take my place, Jesse."

Jesse swallowed the lump in his throat, which wasn't there because of anxiety over the looming responsibility, he realized, but from an emotion that came with the acknowledgement of Luke's goodbye. He wasn't surprised to feel a stinging in his eyes but before things got too embarrassingly emotional, Jesse stepped forward and gave Luke his best attempt at a bro hug.

"This would be the part in the movie where the scene fades to white," he mumbled. "And then I'm gonna stay in this room and play with the handbook, while you quietly slip out and let me."

* * *

After the game ended with neither of them caring who won, Aubrey and Stacie had taken a short drive in comfortable silence (mainly to rest their voice after all their yelling) and were now leaning against the railings of the stone bridge in Piedmont Park, finishing their ice cream cones.

"God, I ate so much today," Aubrey groaned despite finishing off every bit of her treat.

"Don't worry, I think you screamed all the calories off when _that guy_ caught _that ball_ ," deadpanned Stacie, wiping her sticky fingers with a wet tissue.

Aubrey raised an amused eyebrow. "Baseball clearly isn't your sport."

"I just think professional athletes are pompous jerks," shrugged Stacie.

"I'll keep that in mind," chuckled Aubrey. She rested her elbows on the railings and sighed admiringly at the beautiful sunset against the city skyline. Stacie mimicked her position but looked down at their reflection in the water instead. Sensing that the time had come for, Aubrey kept her eyes to the sky and said softly, "Whatever it is you plan to do, wherever you plan to go… just be safe, okay?"

Stacie's head shot up in surprise. "You knew?"

"I guessed," replied Aubrey, still not keen on looking Stacie in the eyes.

"That would have been a really weird thing to say if you guessed wrong," smirked Stacie.

"I'm never wrong."

"Right again." Stacie lowered her gaze back down to their reflections. "So… I don't need to say anything more, do I?"

"Not if you don't want to."

Aubrey didn't know why she was saying no when she was screaming for an explanation inside. She felt disappointed, curious, scared for Stacie, and angry with her all at the same time. She could rationalize the first three, but there weren't many reasons she could be angry with her for wanting to leave.

Stacie seemed to take her up on her offer, because the brunette hadn't uttered a word in minutes.

Finally taking her eyes off the sky, Aubrey looked down. The water was poignantly still, and she could see an odd mix of regret and conviction in Stacie's reflected eyes. A memory suddenly flashed through her mind, reminding her of the first time she saw those stormy eyes up close. Ever since that day, there had always been something there. It was left unspoken and untouched, but always at the ready for something to start. Every glance, every smile was a tease, a glimpse of a possibility of something… amazing. So maybe she was angry with Stacie for giving up on that possibility, but she was angrier with herself for being the reason it was never taken.

A ripple in the water distorted their reflections as a tear escaped Aubrey's eye and fell. And after the first one, the next came all to easily. "I'm—I'm sorry," she found herself apologizing while rubbing at her eyes stubbornly. "I don't know why—"

Turning away from the water, Aubrey saw similar tear tracks on Stacie's cheeks. The brunette smiled weakly and offered her the handkerchief she had used as a bandana earlier at the game.

"I'm sorry," Aubrey repeated after things had calmed down, only this time she meant it for a different reason. "I'm sorry for how things turned out between us."

"I'm sorry, too," Stacie said softly. "I really didn't expect, well, you."

"You're not—you're not leaving because of…?"

Stacie shook her head. Aubrey's heart raced expectantly when Stacie opened her mouth to explain, but the brunette backtracked and didn't say anything.

"Well then," Aubrey began, reverting to her old self, "I wish you good luck in your endeavors—"

"Aubrey…"

Aubrey had to close her eyes to quell the fresh wave of tears that came upon hearing Stacie say her name. "Look, it's going to hurt no matter what, so can we just please not waste time—"

Stacie's arms wrapped around Aubrey tightly, silencing the blonde's plea, and Aubrey wasted no time returning the hug, pulling her closer.

"I'm going to miss you and your incessant timekeeping," Stacie said thickly.

"And I will miss you and your… everything."

* * *

"You're leaving?" John looked up from his paperwork in surprise to make sure that what he heard was correct. His ever-loyal assistant was standing firmly before him and nodding.

"My job is done, John," she said. "Chloe is back and she'll be safe with Jack and Gail. The MRA is underway and we're all convinced it will protect the students, aren't we? I've paid my dues and I believe it's time for me to go back."

John frowned slightly. He hadn't expected to rely so much on Charlene, but there was technically nothing he could do to stop her from leaving—literally or figuratively. "I won't stop you but I will ask you to reconsider," he said slowly. "Now that the MRA is enacted, if the media finds out… you might be putting more people at risk."

A muscle in Charlene's jaw twitched as she gritted her teeth at her precarious situation. She was sick of hiding who she was, but John was right; she couldn't go back. Not now, when things were still unsettled. If anyone were to discover a hereditary component of the mutant gene, she might be putting their entire race at risk.

* * *

Beca threw the sheets off her legs, deciding that it was too warm to pretend she could still sleep until past noon anymore. Last night had been a blur. She remembered talking to Chloe, then being told that the bill passed, and then a cacophony of phones ringing with calls from concerned family. She herself had been talking to her mom nonstop until late into the night, each assuring the other that things were going to be fine.

By now, the President had probably already signed the MRA into a law and, despite knowing it was inevitable anyway, Beca couldn't help but feel like a great weight was lifted off her chest. It wasn't a great situation to be in, but for once the future wasn't teetering on the edge. There was some structure to having your life shackled to a law.

Finding some odd motivation in that thought, Beca walked over to where she had left her phone charging and dialed a recent addition to her contact list.

" _Hello?_ " a bright and chirpy voice answered after the first ring.

"Hey, Chloe, it's Beca."

" _Yeah, I know. We exchanged numbers, remember?_ "

Beca chuckled and shook her head at her idiocy. "Right."

" _Um, why are you calling?_ " Chloe sounded more confused than curious so Beca cut to the chase.

"I wanted to say sorry for how we left things last night," she said. "I got pretty disoriented after we left prom… Anyway, there's something you should know but, uh, maybe we should do this face to face?"

" _I agree_ ," Chloe replied with a giggle.

"Okay, great!" Beca said in relief. "I guess I could ask CR to fly me to New York in a couple of hours—"

Beca immediately walked to her door to inform Cynthia Rose across that hall, but was surprised to see Chloe standing behind it with a patronizing smirk on her face once she opened it. "You could, but I wouldn't be there," she said.

"I thought you went back to New York—" Beca tossed her phone back to her bed. "Gail and Jack were here last night, weren't they?"

Chloe shrugged. "Yeah, but it'd be a pretty tough commute if I plan to get my training here and go to college at Barden—"

"You're staying here?" grinned Beca. Things were already looking up for life at Barden.

"You look happy about that," Chloe said tentatively.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"I thought you'd be mad at me for last night…"

Beca frowned. "Mad at you for what?"

"Because I laughed really hard when you thought we'd had sex."

"I'm not mad at—wait, why _did_ you laugh so hard?" Beca pouted in spite of herself. "Do you not think I'm—?"

"No, it's not that!" Chloe insisted quickly, holding Beca by the shoulders and leading her back into the room for privacy. Closing the door behind her, she explained, "I laughed because you looked so sure of yourself when _you_ were the one who didn't want to do anything in the first place."

"I—what?"

"You said you didn't want to do that with me," Chloe said calmly, starting to make Beca's bed.

"I don't think anyone in the _world_ would say that about you," Beca rolled her eyes, quickly moving forward to help Chloe, "except maybe your family."

"Gross," Chloe laughed, tossing a pillow at Beca's head. "Anyway, you told me that whatever we had was something more than just physical attraction…" Her voice softened a bit. "You said that sex had always been the basis for your past flings and you wanted it to be different with me. So we promised to wait until the time felt right."

Beca expected to be happy—ecstatic in fact—to hear those words, because they completely absolved her from guilt. But instead she felt the same way she did last night, standing before a beauty she didn't deserve.

"Beca," Chloe called softly. Beca snapped out of her thoughts and looked at Chloe. "I don't need telepathy to know what you're thinking. You're thinking that you don't remember being this person, and that maybe the person I should be with is someone who could be what you were to me. You're thinking you can't live up to her, so now you don't deserve me.

"But... I'm not oblivious to the way you look at me," she said, making Beca blush, "or the way you always want to take care of me—no matter what memories you have, you always seem to do that. So I _know_ in my heart I'm not the only one who feels this way. But if you're still thinking that you don't deserve me, then let me tell you something, Beca:

" _I_ never deserved _you_. All those years ago, when you shared your heart with me, without asking for anything in return—I never did anything to deserve that. It was just you being you, and me needing you. I only want to do the same for you now, Beca. Without asking for anything in return, I just want to be there when you need me—I just want to _love_ you."

Throwing all caution to the wind, Beca leapt across her bed—ruffling the newly smoothed sheets—to cup Chloe's face in her hands and press their lips together in a passionate kiss.

* * *

 **A/N:** I had to end it with good news. There were so many other hints I wanted to leave in this Epilogue (like the Kommissar/Keyblade storylines, and which PP characters will be introduced as new mutants) but you can look forward to that next season. ;)

Since I trusted you to read until the very end, this is where I say thank you so much for reading, and remind you that I will be going on hiatus to write the third season so the next time we meet (at least in this story) will probably be in 2016. TTFN!


	19. Where Were We?

**A/N:** Hello again! I'm trying something new this 2016: shorter chapters. Since I have the full story in my head, I don't really know if this is short or long, but please feel free to voice out your opinion if you think I should stick to the longform stories of around 7,000+ words a chapter.

We resume the story on the first day of school (typical), so about eight weeks after the Season Two Finale. I'll let the characters catch you up on what has happened since. This is essentially a bit of a fun, chill teaser.

* * *

 **Chapter Nineteen: Where Were We?**

 _WEE-WOO! WEE-WOO! WEE-WOO!_

Beca's eyes shot open at the sound of the siren. It took her merely a split second to throw the sheets off her body and surround herself in a protective vortex of air. Only after furiously blinking the sleep from her eyes did Beca realize she wasn't under attack.

Actually, scratch that. She very soon might be, as the blanket she had flung across the room landed on a figure that, judging by the growling sounds coming from under the sheet, was _not_ pleased to be woken up in such a way.

"S-sorry, Kimmy Jin…" mumbled Beca, using her aerokinesis to suck the blanket back into her hand. Glancing at her roommate's bedside table, she saw the noisy culprit.

 _Who the hell uses a siren as an alarm? Jeez._

Beca's new roommate glared at her for a solid five seconds before proceeding to their shared bathroom. When the door slammed shut behind her, Beca sighed in relief. The dark-haired Korean might be as warm as a frostbite, but at least she never did anything to Beca besides glaring. She hadn't even spoken a word to Beca ever since Aubrey announced that stupid new housing rule.

Over the summer, after the Mutant Registration Act had been announced, people from all over the country flocked to the only mutant training facility known at the time: the Barden Institute. Though not all of the concerned individuals needed training (heck, not all of them were mutants even), the number of students at Barden had since increased significantly.

And while an extra wing was currently being constructed to accommodate all these new students (paid for by the U.S. government, thank you very much), Beca had the displeasure to discover that bedrooms would, in the meantime, be shared two-to-one, with Aubrey providing the definitive—and final—list of pairs. Beca, unfortunately, got stuck with Kimmy Jin, while someone else got Chloe.

 _Oh, Chloe_.

Beca smiled goofily as she made her bed, thinking back on quite possibly the greatest summer ever. Before the whole roommate situation happened, Beca had an occasional red-haired, blue-eyed visitor to keep her company at night—they only cuddled, but even that was amazing.

Beca plopped back down on her bed (now only a single, she thought grudgingly) and casually glanced at the clock.

 _6:38AM._ She didn't even have class for another four hours.

"Fuck, is this how it's going to be _everyday_?" she groaned into her pillow. Kimmy Jin hadn't kept an alarm over the break but now there was no way she could escape it.

Thinking she might as well get something done, Beca leapt off the bed and sauntered downstairs to the dining hall. There were only a handful of students awake, most of them still in high school since their schedules were blocked, and Beca looked down on them with a kind of playful patronization now that she was a bonafide college student. But there were also some college students who were early rising nerds like Kimmy Jin—

And, apparently, Chloe. The pajama-clad redhead was sitting at the far end of the long wooden table with a book propped open in front of her while she chomped on a spoonful of Froot Loops. Beca slid onto the bench across from her and put on a smug smile.

"You're up early," commented Chloe, not looking away from the book she was reading—an _Introduction to Microeconomics_ with a 'Property of Aubrey Posen' sticker plastered on the spine.

"I'm excited for the first day of school."

Chloe finally looked at her with raised eyebrows.

"And maybe Kimmy Jin had an obnoxiously loud alarm," added Beca. "Why are you studying? It's the first day of school, the professors are probably not even going to show up."

"I want to be ready," said Chloe. "Aubrey said—"

"Please don't turn into Aubrey. Please?" Beca covered Chloe's hand with hers playfully. Chloe laughed.

"Hey, I heard that," came the blonde's commanding tone seconds before she emerged from the kitchen with her handy-dandy clipboard. "Chloe, don't listen to her; Beca's been known to vastly underachieve," she said, checking off '6:40 breakfast prep' from her clipboard. "Oh, but it's actually good that you're awake, Beca, I need you to—"

Beca groaned loudly.

"I need you to go over the basic training regimen with Jesse at seven-thirty," Aubrey continued loudly over Beca's groans. "And be ready to facilitate the afternoon session at one-thirty."

"Why me?" whined Beca.

"Because Jesse and I have class and you _promised_ you'd help with training out once school started."

Beca looked up at Aubrey's stern, guilt-inducing eyes. Like she had a choice, now that she, Aubrey, and Jesse were the only ones capable of training the mewbies ('mutant newbies' as Beca liked to call them) anyway. "Fine," she sighed. "But you don't get to complain if training drags and I miss the first afternoon class of my college life."

"That won't be a problem as long as you follow my carefully laid out instructions," said Aubrey. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have high school kids to wake up."

"Use a siren! It's really effective," Beca called after her before turning back to her and Chloe's intertwined hands.

"Why are you so against teaching the new students anyway?" Chloe asked gently.

"The mewbies? I don't know," replied Beca, avoiding Chloe's gaze. "I'm not a good teacher, I guess."

"You totes are!"

"You think so?" smirked Beca.

"Yes! I've seen you sub for Jesse when he had to go to the doctor's to remove those spikes."

Beca winced at the memory of one of the younger mewbies accidentally shooting a spike smack onto Jesse's butt. "That was one time."

"Still, I liked it. You were kinda hot."

Beca's smug smile ran from ear to ear. "Oh, yeah?"

Chloe rested her chin on her palm and waggled her eyebrows comically. "Maybe _you_ should be my private, personal tutor," she said in an exaggeratedly husky voice, batting her thick lashes at Beca. " _Miss Mitchell_."

Beca threw her head back and laughed at Chloe's antics. "I'd love to, but we probably wouldn't get any work done," she countered.

"Now you're talking," Chloe smirked predatorily.

They heard a suppressed squeal of delight and turned their heads to see one of the high school girls clutching the straps of her backpack excitedly. The girl blushed when she saw that she was caught, and scampered away.

"Seriously? These kids are everywhere," sighed Beca. "I'm starting to miss having the mansion all to ourselves."

* * *

Chloe returned from her first day as a college student feeling severely over-prepared. Beca had been absolutely right; none of her professors had even showed up. They had only sent their teaching assistants to discuss the syllabi and dismiss the class early. It wasn't worth the trip downtown.

"Hey, Amy," she greeted her roommate, seeing that the blonde Australian was resting on her bed reading a magazine.

"Look at this!" Amy cried, tossing the magazine across the room. She had terrible aim so it landed on Chloe's nightstand and knocked her lamp off. "Read what that twig bitch has been saying about me!"

Chloe picked up the magazine—one of those trashy tabloids—and read the headline, 'Opal Poppy Mourns Best Friend.' Her eyes scanned the article in confusion. "Uh… It says here she's starting a charity in your name to advocate positive self image and health consciousness."

"Yeah!" Amy flailed her arms around. "Can you believe her? Taking credit for _my_ fake death so she could boost her own publicity—did you see that the article reduced me to ' _best friend'_ instead of Patricia? Give it a month and she'd probably rename the 'Patricia Foundation' to the _Opal_ _Poppy_ Foundation—that bitch!"

"Why do you care what it's called?" Chloe said calmly. "I thought you wanted young girls to know it's okay not to be supermodel thin and prioritize on being healthy? Isn't that why you quit the business and changed your identity?"

"Absolutely, but look how she explained _why_ she's starting the charity," Amy pointed indignantly to the magazine before snatching it out of Chloe's hands and reciting it herself. "' _Patricia always had a problem with the way she looked_.' I never had a problem with the way I looked, I had a problem with _her_ calling me fat behind my back, that slimy—!"

"Amy, relax!" Chloe grabbed hold of the Australian's arms before she could break anything else in their room. "You don't need to care about this stuff anymore. You left your past behind you."

The blonde huffed. "You're right, Ginge. I came to America to start a _new_ life—not as the Australian supermodel, crocodile wrestler, mermaid dancer, Patricia—but as… as Fat Amy!"

"That's right," Chloe nodded encouragingly despite the odd epithet. "And this new Amy—"

"Fat Amy."

Chloe obliged reluctantly. "This new... _Fat_ Amy doesn't care what people think about her. She just does whatever she wants!"

"Right!" Amy rose from her bed enthusiastically. "Look out, world, and get ready to feel the Fat Power! Arrrgh!" Fat Amy grew to twice her size and busted through their bedroom door, leaving a huge hole in the wall on her way to celebrating her newfound freedom downstairs.

"Provided it's within the limits of acceptable behavior!" Chloe yelled after her, feeling the floor shake with each of Fat Amy's stomps. "Oh, boy…" She looked regretfully at the gaping hole in their wall that she'd have to live with for the next few days.

"Whoa," came a voice from behind her. It was Jesse's. "I'm guessing Amy caused that?"

"She's _Fat_ Amy now," Chloe corrected with a chuckle. "Sorry about the wall."

"No worries," he replied in his best Australian accent. "I'll have Aubrey add it to the list of contingent expenses. Are you ready for our session?"

"Oh—yeah, let me just," Chloe glanced at the pile of freshly laundered clothes at the foot of her bed, "get rid of my suddenly very public undergarments…"

Jesse laughed while Chloe stashed the clothes in her wardrobe. On their way to the library (they both preferred it over the underground training facilities for its peace and quiet) Chloe asked how his relationship with Aubrey was going.

"Very well, thanks for asking," he grinned. "She's really getting into doing more couple-y things now. I think being co-instructors over the summer built a good rapport between us. She sees me as more responsible now."

"That's great!" Chloe said cheerfully. "I'm happy for you guys."

"Thanks! How about you and Beca?"

"What do you mean?" Chloe lifted her chin innocently.

"Come on! You're not still trying to hide the fact that something's been going on between you two all summer, are you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Chloe said with a coy grin.

Jesse shook his head in amusement. "Fine, but you're not fooling anyone. You can't keep your eyes off each other for more than two seconds, and I know _for a fact_ that you used to sneak out to her room before all the other students moved in. You're a real bull in a china shop at night, you know."

"It takes one to know one," Chloe stuck her tongue out, not realizing that, by insinuating that Jesse had also snuck out in the middle of the night to Aubrey's bedroom, she had admitted to doing the same.

"Yes, it does," Jesse replied smugly.

Chloe frowned when she realized her mistake. "Ugh, whatever, Jesse!"

They entered a small storage room within the library that they had cleared for Chloe's training and Jesse prepared himself for an hour and a half of sitting patiently across her on the carpeted floor as she concentrated on clearing her mind. They had been doing this exercise three times a week for the past eight weeks, with various objects placed a few feet in front of Chloe for her to try and manipulate. Today, it was an eraser. Jesse's eyes travelled frequently between the eraser and the small monitor that displayed Chloe's heart rate and brain activity, and he occasionally took notes when something interesting happened.

This was the kind of special training Chloe needed, since the generic power exercises found in the enchiridion didn't work for her. It was also the kind that was definitely _not_ suitable for Aubrey, who would have ripped all the hair off of her head out of impatience after the lack of results. Though she was much more impatient than the blonde, Beca, being the lazy last resort choice for an instructor, would not have been a better choice. She'd agree to do it, but would cause too much of a distraction for Chloe and end up rolling on the floor, making out.

That was why Jesse was the best person to—

Soft, pink lips slowly descended on another, eagerly-awaiting pair of lips. First they gently brushed against each other, then parted, and then joined together once more in a heated kiss. A thin string of saliva connected those lips as their faces angled and shifted positions. The kiss was made even steamier when a swollen bottom lip was brushed by the other's tongue before it gave way and allowed complete access to its mouth.

Jesse blinked and gulped. His eyes widened, his breath hitched, and he flushed in embarrassment. He shamefully realized that he had just been very elaborately imagining his two female friends heavily making out. He counted himself lucky to have stopped himself before it got too far…

A quiet beeping brought Jesse's attention to the monitor, where he noticed that Chloe's heart rate was increasing and a certain area of her brain was being stimulated—as opposed to a minute ago when everything was balanced at low levels as a result of her meditation. Jesse quickly looked at the eraser but nothing was happening. He frowned and looked up at Chloe just in time to see her gulp.

He got an idea and started jotting down some notes, deciding that it was probably best not to mention his own reaction to what he really hoped was Chloe's first signs of telepathy.

* * *

"How was your session with Jesse today?" asked Beca, as she strolled, hand in hand with Chloe, under the moonlight, through the edge of the forest that lay past the gardens and far enough from the mansion for them to be certain they wouldn't be interrupted.

"Same as always," sighed Chloe. "Except, well…"

"What?"

"I kinda got distracted in the middle of it… by you."

Beca smirked, feeling very proud of herself. "Yeah? What was I doing?"

"You kept kissing me," pouted Chloe. "I couldn't get anything done—literally."

Beca laughed. "Poor Jesse, thinking you were making progress when you were actually just fantasizing about me."

"Don't be so smug! It's not like you don't fantasize about me."

"I don't _fantasize_ —that's so creepy. Only you like to fantasize," teased Beca.

"Shut up!" Chloe shoved Beca playfully. "I do not! I just like thinking about things to do with my mouth… things my mouth could do to _your_ mouth…" She glanced down at Beca's lips and licked hers suggestively. "A girl can dream, can't she?"

"Hmm… How about we turn those dreams into a reality." Beca gently pushed Chloe up against a tree and got her much-needed taste of Chloe's soft and sweet lips.

"Why is it that they are always kissing?" asked a voice from deeper into the forest.

"I imagine it is pleasurable for the tiny mouse," another voice answered with a hint of condescension.

Beca could never mistake those voices to belong to anyone other than the annoying German duo, Kommissar and Pieter. She groaned in frustration against Chloe's lips before pulling apart and resting her forehead against Chloe's collarbone. It was the second time her make out session with Chloe had been interrupted by those two tall, dark, and perfect creatures.

"You know, I'm starting to think you time your visits just to piss me off," she growled toward the forest.

"How are we supposed to know when you want to engage in this locking of the lips?" asked Pieter. His tone made Beca unsure if he was being genuinely ignorant or not.

Chloe gave a tinkling laugh. "I think it's just a coincidence, Becs."

"Mhm." Beca grumbled skeptically as Kommissar and Pieter finally came into view out of the darkness, and Chloe darted forward to give Kommissar a hug.

"Chlobear," the towering blonde greeted fondly—relatively speaking, since only Chloe got treated this way, while everyone else was met with condescending disdain. "You are well since last we met, yes?"

Chloe nodded. "Nothing's changed, really. I still can't master any of my powers, and Beca hasn't felt any disturbance in the forces of dark and light."

Kommissar looked over at Beca for confirmation. The brunette nodded and explained, "I've stopped creating Corridors of my own, and Heartless still pop up in particularly dark places but I'm guessing that's your doing?"

"What kinds of Heartless?" asked Pieter, folding his arms.

"Pretty low-level ones. The ones in the suit of armor, the giant spherical one," answered Beca, ticking them off on her fingers. "Nothing nearly as powerful as the ones we fought in the Realm of Darkness."

Kommissar nodded. "Yes, those were our Heartless. If they have the emblem of a crossed heart, they are our Heartless."

Beca muttered a soft, "Oh," remembering the weird symbol she had noticed on the Heartless' chests. "So… Where is this leak coming from?"

When Kommissar and Pieter had barged into Beca's room that fateful Saturday afternoon two months ago, after the MRA was passed, they not only interrupted Beca and Chloe's "first" kiss, but they had also come bearing news.

As keepers of the balance between light and dark, Kommissar and Pieter had been observing a steady increase in the darkness present in the real world. It was a fractional increase—too small, in fact, to even locate its source—but still worthy of concern from the goddess. Since the leak had been going undetected, unlike the previous unplanned spurts darkness—the likes of Sid Herrera's—which Beca had been able to stop, whoever was on the receiving end of this stream was theoretically increasing power continuously, exponentially, and without detection.

And that was why Kommissar and Pieter had asked for Beca's help, as Keyblade wielder, to help keep track of dark activity, using AMG's technological prowess in case it managed to pick up on something the goddess of darkness couldn't.

"We still do not know," answered Kommissar. "But alert us at once when stronger Heartless begin to appear."

"And how exactly do we do that?" Beca asked pointedly. "You just keep popping up whenever you like but we have no idea how to contact you."

Kommissar raised an eyebrow at Beca and approached her. "Bring out your Keyblade. That is, if you still can," she added with a smirk, unsubtly referring to Beca's lack of practice in the Heartless-bashing department given that she had been stuck babysitting mewbies lately.

Beca scowled and released her Keyblade easily and with a flourish. Kommissar grasped its golden, heart-shaped hilt and conjured a thorny cross to form inside of it. It looked like the emblem found on her Heartless.

"There," she said simply and turned to Pieter, who nodded once, before saying, "We must go now."

"Wait," Chloe piped up. "I have—I have a question."

Kommissar and Pieter turned to her expectantly. Beca dismissed her Keyblade and looked at Chloe curiously.

"Jack… Jack told me that there's a way—that there might be someone who wants to manipulate, um… Kingdom Hearts," Chloe said tentatively, checking Kommissar's face for a reaction. "Do you think that could be the source of the leak?"

Kommissar didn't say anything, but kept her eyes on Chloe's. Pieter's thick eyebrows converged into a concerned frown. Beca, on the other hand, was confused. She had never heard of this "Kingdom Hearts," and was surprised that Chloe had. But she was even more surprised that Chloe hadn't told _her_ about it, especially if it had something to do with the leak.

"I know what you are thinking," Kommissar finally answered, still not breaking eye contact. "A mere human cannot accomplish what you and Jack McKadden fear. But don't worry, Chlobear," she added, her face softening as much as it possibly could, "we will take it into consideration."

Before anyone could say anything more, Kommissar and Pieter disappeared through a Corridor of Darkness. Once left alone in the forest, Beca rounded on Chloe with a hard look. "Care to explain?"

* * *

"Are you sure this goes straight to the planning room?" Stacie asked the lithe Asian beside her. In lieu of answering, the girl gave a thin-lipped smile and unceremoniously pushed Stacie into the portal.

Once she felt the change in temperature from the cool sea breeze to an air-conditioned office room, Stacie immediately flattened herself to an inch thick and clung to the underside of the nearest table she could find like a piece of gum. She held her breath, silently cursing Lilly for the lack of a warning, and listened with all her might for any sign that she had been detected. But all she heard was page turning and tapping keys—no one seemed to have noticed anything out of the ordinary. Stacie gave it fifteen more seconds before risking a glance at her surroundings.

Only two men were left in the room. A middle-aged, bespectacled man was sitting on one end of the circular table at the center of the room, flipping through a thick book and running his finger down each page he crossed. The other man was typing away on a computer's command line at a table against the wall.

The older man scratched his balding head irritably. "There's no way around the company bylaws," he said gruffly, "which means there's no way we won't get sued if we sell those plans."

"I don't know what you're talking about," the younger man said, swiveling around on his chair to glare at him.

"Oh, relax. They didn't install microphones and cameras in here to avoid exactly what we're planning to do."

Stacie rolled her eyes. Even the most secret team in the most secret group of the most secret division of AMG wasn't invulnerable to petty thievery from within its own ranks. But then again, who was she to say anything about that, being a former AMG agent herself.

"What are you doing there on that computer anyway?" the older man asked, rolling his chair over to sit beside his partner. "I thought all computers here were air gapped?"

"Doesn't mean there's no way to bring the digital blueprints out of this room," the younger man answered in a low voice. "Dammit, why'd they have to be so primitive?"

Several beeping sounds suddenly came from the other side of the room's glass door and the two men, as if on cue, began backing away from the computer and the table.

"Eleven o'clock, gentlemen," an armed guard who had just entered announced rather unnecessarily. "Please submit yourselves to inspection at the exit and leave everything as is."

Stacie waited as the guard shut off the light and sealed the airways—an additional measure to ensure that any living creature attempting to steal documents would eventually run out of oxygen. Once the coast was clear, she knew she had only thirty minutes to accomplish her task before breathing would start to get difficult.

It turned out, however, that she didn't need that much time. Thanks to the rule that everything had to be left as is, the plans were laid out on the table right in front of her and Stacie proceeded to store images of the blueprints in a miniature handheld camera. She passed by a desk at the corner of the room before pressing a button on her wristwatch, which was responded to by another portal with Lilly waving at her from the other side.

Stacie leapt through the hole and emerged in a familiar stone-walled room. Luke held her arm to steady her momentum and asked, "How was it?"

"So easy it made me sick," replied Stacie. "Any luck finding your friend Donald?"

Luke shook his head. "He must have changed identities since graduating from Barden. We'll keep looking, though. His powers are really useful."

"Oh, well." Stacie held up the tiny camera. "At least we're one step ahead of them on this front."

* * *

The next morning, Cynthia Rose was holding a bagel between her teeth and raising her arms as she was inspected by the armed guard. Once cleared, she continued through the short fiberglass tunnel that was sealed on both ends and connected to the planning room. She felt her ears pop once she was inside and she walked over to her desk to placed her coffee thermos down. When she reached over to grab a napkin to place her bagel on, she noticed black ink hastily scribbled on the underside of it.

 _Don't trust your teammates._

Cynthia Rose frowned and turned to the blueprints for the anti-mutant weapon she was helping to create.

* * *

 **Response to reviews:**

 **Another Random Human** (Nov. 17) - Cool! How did you know Luke was leaving? Haha. Yeah, I wonder what'll happen when or if Aubrey and Stacie see each other again. Brief mention of Kommissar here but I promise she'll have a bigger role this season. And, yes, I've finally had a chance to introduce a few other PP characters!

 **xcombixgirlx** (Nov. 17) - The wait is over! Haha.

 **Guest** (Nov. 17) - Aww, your poor heart! I'll see what I can do about that soon. ;) Thank you so much for being a loyal reader!

 **Psychic Guest** (Nov. 17) - *after a few weeks of vacation* YOUR ANTI-HERO IS BACK! I was never much of a fan of heroes, hence what I've been doing to Staubrey shippers *evil laugh* Oh, totes, nobody's leaving the story yet. You don't see the effects that much in this chapter, but the MRA has affected them in ways they didn't really expect. Thank you and best wishes to you, too!

 **pineappletini** (Nov. 17) - In addition to my response via PM: I'm glad you enjoy reading! I'll let Aubrey know you're waiting haha. I like that you see a point in Luke and Stacie's reason to leave; other characters in the story might not be as understanding. Don't worry, the unregistered mutants are still very much involved in the main storyline. :)

 **bmoney** (Nov. 18) - Thank you! Yeah, let's see how it goes with me dishing out 3-4k words a chapter instead of my average 7k haha.

 **Maggie** (Nov. 24) - No worries! It's a great joy to hear from the readers whenever and wherever. :) The group of unregistered mutants will be having their own adventures, but as of this chapter Charlene is still a mystery haha. That would be interesting! But I'm afraid Aubrey has too much responsibilities at Barden to just up and leave.

* * *

 **A/N:** Compared to my usual chapters, this looks so short that I actually feel sad for you guys. I'll try to update soon.


	20. Where the Grass is Greener

**Chapter Twenty: Where the Grass is Greener**

"Remember when we were discussing the provisions of the MRA, and John mentioned that the government will be looking into stopping the Heartless for good?"

Beca nodded. "Yeah, it seemed like you knew something about it," she said to Chloe, who was walking alongside her on their way back to the mansion. "I forgot to ask what it was though."

"Well, I suddenly remembered something Jack told me back when we were in the Dark Margin," explained Chloe. "He said you can actually do that by locking the Door to Darkness with your Keyblade."

Beca frowned. "Then why haven't—?"

"I wondered the exact same thing, but meeting Kommissar and Pieter made me realize that we _shouldn't_ shut off the darkness completely. If we learned anything from what happened to me, we know that there has to be a balance between light and dark."

"Okay… but what does this have to do with this Kingdom Hearts thing?"

Chloe bit her lip hesitantly. "When I told Jack back in the Dark Margin that you had the Keyblade, he was suspicious about John's intentions with you. He wondered the same thing you did—if John knew you could easily stop the Heartless from coming back by locking the door, why didn't he tell you to do it in the first place? Why did he keep making you guys fight the Heartless? Jack and I figured why you shouldn't when met Kommissar and Pieter, but _John_ didn't know about the whole balance thing. So Jack thought John might want to use you and your Keyblade to recreate something called Kingdom Hearts."

" _What?_ " Beca grasped Chloe's elbow and stopped her from moving closer to the mansion. "How?"

"Jack told me that Kingdom Hearts—the real one—was a collection of all the hearts that have 'gone to a better place,'" explained Chloe. "It's filled with pure, concentrated light energy, which is incredibly powerful."

"Is this Kingdom Hearts thing a place or…?" Beca asked, confused.

"I think so?" Chloe shrugged. "All he told me was that it was deep in the Realm of Darkness, away from people who would want to exploit its power. Which was why it slipped out of our minds when we found out how difficult it was for you to get through the Realm," she added. "We assumed that it was completely out of reach even by you."

"But you said Jack was worried I _recreate_ one. What does that mean?"

"You have the Keyblade," Chloe pointed out. "You practically release hearts for a living. Where do you think those hearts go?"

"I don't know, I assumed they knew where to go!" Beca began to panic. "Hang on, does Jack think that all this time we've been fighting Heartless I've been concentrating light energy somewhere? Is that… really a bad thing?"

"Jack said that if that _was_ John's plan, then he would need a reason for Heartless to keep appearing in the real world, so that the light energy from the hearts you'd release would be enough to supply power to the whole world—"

"And that would mean intentionally manufacturing darkness!"

"Exactly," said Chloe. "But, remember, this is all just a _theory_ —and it's _Jack's_ theory. He's had ten years of isolation to nurture his suspicions of John, even if he has no shred of evidence. So he dropped it after I told him to give John the benefit of the doubt—"

"Give _that guy_ the benefit of the doubt? Chloe, he _tortured_ you!"

Chloe winced at the sharpness of Beca's tone. "I know!" she said, running a hand through her hair in frustration. "But he apologized and explained why he had to do it—"

"Does that really excuse what he did?"

"Beca, this is why I didn't want to tell you! I don't want you and Jack look back on _that_ time and use it as an excuse to believe the worst in him. Look at the facts—he hasn't done anything but help us ever since we got to Barden. And I'm not defending him, honestly! What he did was terrible but I'm holding on to _hope_ and trusting that he won't do it again because I don't want to keep looking over my shoulder, thinking he's going to do something bad." Chloe sighed. "It's exhausting, Beca."

"So why even bring it up?" frowned Beca.

"Because I wanted to be honest with you and I wanted to be objective to Kommissar," Chloe answered firmly. "If there is a chance John—or _anyone_ in this world—is planning something bad that has to do with this darkness leak, we have the responsibility to tell Kommissar."

Beca relaxed her posture a little. Chloe was right but that didn't rid Beca completely of her renewed suspicions. A year had passed since meeting John Smith, and since then she had learned about his past, forgotten them, and relearned them again, so the slightest doubt of his morality was enough to have her trust come crashing down into the pit of her stomach.

"Okay," she conceded. If Chloe was able to look past it, then she could, too. "And I'm sorry I brought up… you know. I guess I never thought about how much it was affecting you, being around the Professor and all that stuff."

Chloe took Beca's hand and resumed their walk back to the mansion. "It doesn't anymore… Not as much as it did at first. But I know that whenever I bring him up everyone thinks back to _that_ ," she said. "It seems like he's done with all that renewable energy stuff anyway, now that he's getting world famous for being some sort of mutant-whisperer."

Shortly after the U.S. Congress had passed the MRA, other countries had put forth their own mutant-controlling legislation (despite little to no evidence of mutants in their populations), and institutions like Barden were being set up all over the world. Thus, John had been traveling around the world, tasked with making presentations on how to understand and train such mutants. He had quickly become the expert on all things mutant, and was being paid millions in consultation fees by governments seeking his advice as quickly as possible.

"Still," continued Beca, "I want you to be able to talk to me about anything that's bothering you. It kinda sucked that Kommissar understood you in a second when I didn't..."

"Aww!" Chloe spun Beca around and held her closely by the waist. "Feeling a little jealous, are we?"

Beca scowled. "No, I only said that it sucked that Kommissar knew something I didn't. She already looks down on me like I'm incompetent."

"Right," Chloe hummed in feigned agreement, her eyebrows raised knowingly.

"Hey!" Beca cried as Chloe released her and continued up the patio steps without her. "I wasn't jealous!"

"You totally are, Beca."

"Mm-hm."

Beca spun around and saw two figures sitting on the patio swing by the steps. From the garden lights she could make out Jesse and Aubrey with their faces softly illuminated by the iPads they held in their hands.

"Oh, you guys are here!" Chloe said brightly, backtracking down the steps.

"Yup," said Jesse, tapping away on the tablet. "You know, you two can go from arguing, to having a DMC, to getting downright cheesy in two-point-three seconds."

"How long have you two been sitting there?" Beca asked suspiciously. "Doing… what exactly is this? A date?"

"We came out here after dinner to synchronize our schedules for the week," replied Aubrey, swiping at a color-coded schedule on her tablet.

"So, basically, yes. It's a date," Jesse joked before turning to his girlfriend. "By the way, I'm pre-registered in an intro to psych class on Thursdays at nine AM, I'm going to have to give you Marcus."

"Oh, shoot, I can't take him this Thursday." The blonde frowned down at her tablet. "I have a meeting with my thesis adviser. Is there any way to reschedule?"

Beca let out an exaggerated snore and Chloe elbowed her in the ribs. "Be nice!" she hissed. "I think it's sweet and… domestic."

"How is it possible for you two to have skipped all the way to the post-divorce custody battle part of the relationship?" deadpanned Beca. "Who the hell is Marcus?"

Jesse responded by handing her the tablet showing the student's profile. "I could try cutting the physical training on Wednesday by half and then focusing on power training," he suggested to Aubrey.

"This kid's a human periodic table of elements," said Beca after she distilled his information from the profile. "He's Category Zero. What's the big deal?"

Jesse glanced at Aubrey for permission before solemnly answering, "He's being called in for a mission in Afghanistan."

"He's fifteen years old!" exclaimed Chloe, having read the profile with Beca.

"He also has the potential to detect IEDs within a five-mile radius," said Aubrey.

"Don't they have machines or something that could do that?" Beca asked angrily.

Aubrey shook her head, and her tone was firm but not dispassionate. "IED detection was something the army was about to spend nearly fifty million dollars on figuring out. Marcus can save lives at virtually zero the cost."

"But it's not his responsibility to do _anything_!"

"Nobody's forcing him to, Beca," Jesse reminded her patiently. "He agreed to do it."

"Sure, after they coated it in star-spangled sugar, no doubt," Beca said bitterly. "What, did they knit him a cape to go along with the job?"

"He won't be in any danger—"

"If some terrorist group finds out he's behind it, he will!"

"The government won't let that happen, Beca," he assured her. "Look, this is a compromise we all agreed to when we registered. On the bright side, we have _two million_ dollars at Barden's disposal. We can afford technology that isn't even _made_ yet to train mutants to be stronger and protect themselves better. Look at how much Barden has improved in the past three months—we're living like _gods_ here, dude!"

Aubrey raised an eyebrow. "Or would you rather be in hiding with a target on your back?"

Beca glared at the two of them before storming off in a huff to head indoors. She roughly shoved the door to the kitchen open and stopped herself from slamming it when she saw Chloe following her with gentle eyes. Instead, breathing heavily, she sagged onto a stool and leaned her elbows on the kitchen island. After Chloe took the seat beside hers she ran a hand over her face.

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize," said Chloe. "I'm upset, too... but not at Jesse and Aubrey."

"But did you hear them?" Beca said indignantly. "Look on the bright side? There is no bright side to having our lives contracted to the government, Chloe! And Jesse was just spitting out the reasons they want mutants to believe to get them to register. It's pathetic."

"But don't you see that Jesse and Aubrey _have_ to?" reasoned Chloe. "It's not like they don't also hate this arrangement; they just have to believe it for the sake of the students. Right now, Barden still _is_ the best option for mutants out there. They have to convince the scared ones that they are safe here instead of going in hiding."

Beca perked up at the mention of the alternative. "But what if they're _not_ safer?" she asked seriously. "I mean, look at this Marcus kid. Whether he likes it or not, he's now more likely to be in danger than if nobody knew he was a mutant. What if it's actually better on the outside?"

* * *

A glowing, purple hole materialized out of nowhere in the corner of the room. Luke turned his head just as Stacie emerged from it, pushing back the hood of her jacket. Lilly hopped out gracefully behind her seconds later. They were both carrying bags filled with grocery and food items.

"Food's here," announced Stacie, and half a dozen unregistered mutants rose from their places and approached her. She walked over to the small desk at the center of the room to where Luke had remained sitting at the table, poring over the images of the blueprints she had acquired. "Not hungry?"

Luke shook his head.

"Oh, come on, Luke. We've been at this for weeks. You're going to starve if you keep refusing to eat stolen food."

Luke gave her a wry smile. "No, I won't," he said. "I've still got cash."

Stacie rolled her eyes, deciding not to argue with the morally upright mutant, and instead asked, "Have you figured out the mechanism yet?"

"No," he sighed. "Why don't you give it a try? You're one with engineering experience."

"Hey, I do ships and aircrafts, not weapons," she replied. "But fine, I'll give it a shot."

"Ugh!" A high-pitched groan came from across the room. "This is all junk! Couldn't you have stolen something from Whole Foods?"

Stacie rolled her eyes. " _You_ can do the shopping with Lilly next time then, Alice."

The dark-haired pixie shot the eccentric Asian a cautious look and groaned again. "Ugh, fine… You know, if I'd known we were going to be slumming it like this—"

"What, you would have registered?" an olive-skinned stud balancing on a unicycle scoffed before taking a bite out of an apple.

" _No!_ " snapped Alice. "I can't stand those traitors. I'd rather eat garbage than have my life turned inside out."

"Good, 'cause no offense, Alice, but you're a freak of nature—ow! I said no offense!"

"Don't you think I know that?" she snarled. "That's exactly why I _can't_ register—no one will ever look at me the same way again! They'd probably have me locked up in a zoo—or worse, flying over Pakistan like some kind of drone!"

"I think don't think we have to worry about that," remarked Bumper, hopping into the conversation. "At this point, if we were caught, we might just be sent straight to prison. And _I_ can't do prison, which is why I have more pressing matters at hand—like why the hell are we still keeping that goober with us?" He jerked his thumb over to the table of computers against the wall, where someone with dark, messy hair and a long, pasty face was stuffing a handful of potato chips into his mouth.

"Hrrmf!" the man scowled, swiveling in his chair to face them. "Jush 'coz I dun' haff powersh—" he swallowed "—doesn't mean I'm utterly useless, you know."

"True. It's thanks to Tommy that we can find and contact mutants who don't want to register," said Luke. "So some you have him to thank for that."

Alice crossed her arms suspiciously. "But how do we know he's not just gathering as many unregistered mutants as he can to eventually turn us all in for the money?"

The guy named Tommy stood up and raised his hands in a gesture of peace. "Hey, like I told hot pants and Union Jack over there," he waved his hands in the direction of Stacie and Luke, "I'm on _your_ side. I don't think mutants should have to disclose that they're mutants. I don't think the government should passive aggressively tell you what to do with your powers—"

"Bullshit," said Unicycle, cupping his mouth with his hands to amplify his voice. "You're just repeating what Luke said the other day."

"All right, fine!" squealed Tommy, when some of the mutants took a menacing step toward him. "Truth time. Look, this is a personal thing for me, okay? I wasn't exactly Mr. Popular back at my school. Hell, I've been stuffed in a Dora the Explorer backpack, I've been pushed into the girls' locker room wearing nothing but suspenders—and when I tried to join the army, they _rejected_ me."

Alice, Bumper, and Unicycle all exchanged nods and shrugs, easily seeing those things happening to Tommy.

"What I'm trying to say is, I know what it's like to be an outsider, to be threatened into thinking your only option is to leave town or else you're screwed. So, when I found out about this underground mutant gathering, I thought I'd help you guys out. And maybe—just maybe—you'd accept me as one of your own."

His last words were met with silence until—

"Yeah, whatever."

"Loser."

"D'you actually believe this guy?" Unicycle asked Luke amusedly as Alice and Bumper turned around and left the conversation.

Luke looked up at him from over Stacie's shoulder. "I suppose," he shrugged. "Besides, Tommy knows that if he double-crosses us, we could always punish him in the most creative of ways."

Tommy gulped audibly. "Back to work then," he said, brushing his hands on his jeans to get rid of chip dust before resuming his position in front of the computer. As though to prove his usefulness to the group, after only a few seconds of tapping keys on his keyboard, he already had an announcement. "It looks like they've got another kid on the army train, guys. Marcus Day. Abilities… something called chemical eyesight? What the hell? Who names these things?... For use in IED detection… Whoa—fifteen years old."

Luke spun his head around upon hearing the last bit of information. "Are you sure he's signed on?" he asked with a frown.

"It wouldn't be here if he wasn't," replied Tommy. "Why?"

"Nothing." Luke turned back to the blueprints.

Stacie could tell that it bothered him that someone so young would be allowed to participate in a war. He had always made sure that the younger students be exempted from fighting Heartless back when they were at Barden.

"I'm sure they did everything they could," she said quietly. "This just proves that we're facing something bigger than what Barden can handle. We have to keep pushing."

* * *

"I mean, I'm grateful and all to have all this new stuff and food as far the as the eye can see—"

"We're all grateful for that." Beca and Chloe turned their heads toward the sound of Fat Amy's voice as she casually walked in. "Oh, don't mind me," she said, "I'm just getting a midnight snack."

"It's a quarter to nine," said Chloe, glancing up at the clock.

"Duh, it's not like I'd want to go all the way down here for a snack in the middle of the night when I'm already comfortable in bed," reasoned Fat Amy, causing the two to frown when she actually made sense. "So what were you guys fighting about?"

"We weren't fighting," Chloe was quick to assure.

"Yeah, well, you weren't ogling each other either—it's always one or the other with couples, isn't it?"

"Uh, we were…" Chloe looked to Beca for help. But Beca had something else in mind to ask.

"Hey, Amy—"

"It's Fat Amy now."

"Okay... _Fat_ Amy… Why did you register under an alias here in the U.S.? Isn't it kind of pointless?"

Fat Amy paused to think while she chewed on a Slim Jim she pulled out of the pantry. "Well, I was already a bit of a celebrity down in Tasmania when I first realized I had powers," she began. "I didn't like them one bit so I rode the wave to fame and fortune instead, until it all got too much to hide. I mean, you've read what bitches my colleagues were," she gestured at Chloe. "They'd take any opportunity to bring me down. I wanted a way out of that business and America was right across the Pacific, waiting to experience the new, unselfconscious me. Obviously it was too late to go as Patricia so I adopted a new identity with a little help from the Professor."

"So registering was actually your way of hiding?" said Beca. "That's ironic."

"There is no reason for me to hide being a mutant now, especially if it means I can develop my powers more here," shrugged Fat Amy. "And unlike you Americans, my government doesn't seem to want to turn _me_ into a fighting machine."

"But if they did, would you have registered?"

"Is that what you were fighting about? Look, short-stack," said Fat Amy, grabbing another stick of jerky, "I don't know much about what was going on here before I came around and livened the place up, but I'd gathered that one or two of your friends skipped town and didn't register."

Chloe nodded sadly while Beca folded her lips into a tight line.

"Now, if you want to know why _I_ registered, it was because it was my easiest option," explained Fat Amy. "It was the option where I had the least to lose. Sure, I don't get much privacy and I have to have meetings with a government agent like I'm some criminal on parole, but for someone who created an entirely new identity for herself, it's not the worst thing. So if you're worrying your skinny little head about whether you chose the right side, realize that there _is_ no right side. I chose the side where I had the least to lose; maybe your friends—and everybody else in here—did, too."

Short of dropping an imaginary microphone, Fat Amy strutted out of the kitchen bringing with her the entire canister of the smoked snack and leaving Beca and Chloe behind in a stunned silence.

"You know, when she first came here I thought she was nuts," said Beca, after a long pause. "She barged into the foyer talking about sex at the Renaissance Concourse, and then asked Aubrey to carry her bags up while she demonstrated how to get a dingo to tap out—with _Jesse_ as the dingo. I wonder what it says about me if she's starting to make a lot of sense."

Chloe smiled lightly. "Does this mean you'll stop jumping down Aubrey and Jesse's throats when they're just doing their jobs?"

"I guess. I mean, yeah," sighed Beca. "It's not them I should be mad at. Maybe… maybe I'm more upset that Luke and Stacie left without saying good-bye."

"Do you think, if they did, that you would go with them?" Chloe asked softly.

Beca looked up, into those strikingly blue eyes, and immediately felt remorse when she saw a tinge of insecurity because her first instinct was to say yes. Thankfully, though, she didn't have to come up with a better answer.

"Sorry to interrupt, guys," said Jesse, holding the kitchen door open for Aubrey to enter.

"We have news," Aubrey said grimly, walking over to them and propping her iPad on the counter. "This just in…"

" _I'm here with the owner of the bar where the incident happened. Sir, can you tell us what exactly went down a mere thirty minutes ago?_ "

Aubrey was showing them a clip from a Texas news channel's website. A rather hostile lower third read, 'Mutant Uprising in Texas' and underneath that, 'Local Bar Attacked by Unregistered Mutants.' The clip continued with the owner claiming he hadn't been present, but that his employees had overheard an exchange between two people that involved having special abilities and " _the next thing I know I've got a hole burned through my wall and twenty-four hundred dollars worth of alcohol on the floor!_ "

"The disgustingly biased journalism aside, this isn't good for us," Aubrey said when the clip ended. "And I wanted to you see this—"

"So what, so I'd know that going unregistered is a bad idea? Okay, I get it!" Beca rolled her eyes. "That's just one incident, Aubrey. Besides, you don't seriously think Luke and Stacie are running around messing up bars, do you?"

"It's actually not the only incident," Jesse said diplomatically. "There have been few in the past few weeks—a couple of robberies, minor assaults—but none have ever inspired the words, 'mutant uprising' until now."

"Luke might not be behind these incidents, but think about what it says about whatever underground operation he's running if he can't control little bursts of anger by unregistered mutants," Aubrey said seriously. "I just wanted you to understand this... because the Professor has asked us to track them down."

Beca and Chloe exchanged concerned looks.

"Just to be clear, he asked us to track down the unregistered mutants who have been causing trouble," clarified Jesse, trying to ease the tension in the room.

"And I need you to be ready to do what you have to do when the time comes," Aubrey added with a skeptical twitch of her eyebrow.

"Oh, I will be. Because we _won't_ see Luke and Stacie there," Beca replied defiantly.

To Beca's surprise, Aubrey's face softened and her shoulders lost their signature rigidity. She hesitated before saying, "I actually hope you're wrong."

* * *

Cynthia Rose tapped her pen against the table impatiently, watching the blinking display on her digital watch indicating every passing second. Finally, a beep from the entrance signaled the official start of the lunch hour. She rushed to the door and bumped into a heavyset co-worker she remembered was named Justin.

"Oh, hey," he said as they squeezed through the metal detectors one after the other. "It's funny, I've been here almost two months and we've never had a shift together. You're Cynthia, right? The chemist?"

Cynthia Rose nodded.

"I'm Justin, the geneticist," he said excitedly. "I actually got into AMG around the time you left. I had no idea you were a mutant, but you were kind of a legend around the office already. So when I found out you were, I was, like, wow she couldn't get any cooler, can she?"

Cynthia Rose merely hummed and grabbed a plate from the buffet table.

"I meant that with the highest respect, by the way." Justin continued to babble loudly, following close behind her. "I'd kill to have even a single mutated _atom_ in my body—that's, you know, not cancer—but I don't! And I hate myself everyday for that."

Cynthia Rose made what she hoped was a sympathetic face.

"But anyway, I'm just glad to be part of the team working on the _first ever_ mutant genome project!"

Cynthia Rose bit her tongue to prevent herself from spoiling Justin's excitement with the news that it wasn't the first project attempting to discover her powers' origins. But instead, she cleared her throat and asked, "Speaking of which, any luck on isolating the mutant gene?"

"Nope," said Justin, licking a stray glob of ketchup from his finger.

Cynthia Rose raised an eyebrow. "You're awfully casual for someone who's failing at his job."

"Oh, I've actually been waiting for new samples for about a week and a half now."

"What? Weren't mine enough?" Cynthia Rose asked with a frown.

"Well, since I couldn't detect any abnormal mutation in your genome—which isn't to say that you _don't_ have mutations—my guess was that mutant ability is functionally similar to a multifactor disorder. I requested additional data two weeks ago—parents' samples, environmental background, et cetera." He looked at her with wide eyes. "I'm surprised Mrs. McKadden didn't tell you about it, although now that I think about it she did tell me the samples wouldn't be coming from you anymore."

"I guess I'm not a viable candidate," muttered Cynthia Rose, making a mental note to ask her boss about it. "Wait, you said you've been waiting almost two weeks?"

"Mhm," hummed Justin, balancing his plate on the crook of his elbow while he reached for another plate. "There's some hold up in Atlanta—at Barden, the school. They're being kinda junior high about it—you know, ignoring my texts and pretending not to remember me asking. So since we can't forcibly get DNA samples from them, _I'm_ the one being forced—to wait."

Justin didn't seem all that bothered by the delay, Cynthia Rose noted, though it might have to do with the benefits of the job, least of which was free meals. She chuckled silently at her friends' antics, knowing that Beca was getting a laugh out of delaying the request and imagining Aubrey's jaw twitching as she struggled with being unhelpful.

Later that afternoon, just before their regular office hours ended, Gail called Cynthia Rose into her office to give a weekly report.

"I don't have anything new to report since the last time we met," she reported as Gail tidied up her desk, "other than one _more_ suggestion to use paralyzing substances found in venomous snakes."

Gail sighed exasperatedly. "I knew I should have vetoed the name 'anti-mutant weapon.' Can't they understand that we're trying to _neutralize_ the mutants, not _hurt_ them?"

"Yeah, well, things are moving way too slow; it's getting everyone trigger happy," said Cynthia Rose. "And, by the way, you didn't tell me about Justin's request for additional DNA samples. I need his results to begin my chemical analysis."

"Right," Gail said absentmindedly, "sorry about that, but the moment he mentioned parental DNA, I took you out of consideration. I hope that's okay."

Cynthia Rose shrugged. "Not a problem. Oh, and…" She thought back to the note she found on her desk. "Keep an eye out for moles."

Gail looked up from stuffing a manila folder into her leather bag. "What makes you think there's a mole? We had everyone on that team properly vetted."

"Just a gut feeling," she lied. "And it's telling me there's more than one."

Gail nodded. "All right then. If that's all, you may leave. And by that I mean go home," she added. "You probably won't have much to work on until Justin gets his samples. I wonder what the hold up is…"

Cynthia Rose suppressed a smirk as she raised herself from the armchair slowly. "How are they anyway?"

Gail smiled. "It was the first day of school today. Jesse and Aubrey have been doing great, handling the influx of new students like pros. Chloe is over-the-moon excited about going to a real school for the first time in years," she chuckled. "And Beca… well, she's pretending _not_ to be brooding over Luke and Stacie. I hope school will get her mind off it."

Cynthia Rose nodded understandingly.

"How about you?" asked Gail. "How are you dealing with that?"

Cynthia Rose stuffed her hands in her pockets and felt the rolled up piece of tissue paper. "I'm okay."

* * *

"Great lecture. I didn't expect the standing ovation though."

Charlene snorted in spite of herself. "Yeah, they seemed oddly excited to have a mutant issue of their own."

"Speaking of issues," grumbled John, "there was another incident involving an unregistered mutant at a Texas bar around forty minutes ago."

Charlene frowned down at her phone. "Where did you hear that? I didn't get an e-mail from Aubrey."

"It was on Twitter."

" _You're_ on Twitter?"

"More to the point, I need you to head home," said John. "Not tonight, but before the Asian leg of the tour."

"Okay, but why?"

"I need you to supervise the kids," he smiled. "The team will be quite busy in the next few days; I've asked Aubrey to round up the unregistered mutants causing trouble."

"Round them up?" Charlene raised an eyebrow.

"I left that open to interpretation."

Charlene heaved a sigh before nodding. John then eyed her curiously. "If I haven't already, I'd like to thank you for staying," he said. "I thought our conversation the day the MRA was signed would be our last. I don't suppose you've gotten quite… used to this life, have you?"

Charlene turned her head away from gazing out the window and toward the smirking professor. "I guess I can admit that you were right about not coming out as a mutant," she said dully, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of playing her. "It would have caused more trouble than I had expected."

"Then why not go into hiding, or at least come clean to your family?" he asked. "Your powers uniquely allow you to do either. Many of our students would be jealous."

There was a long pause while Charlene returned to staring out the window of their rental car. The buildings they passed only reminded her that the past few weeks had been much of the same: another day, another conference, and another country, to help her forget what was waiting for her at home.

"Maybe I wanted to travel the world first, ride on your coattails," she said insincerely. Then, in a more serious tone, "Or maybe I wanted to help all my fellow mutants get through this in one piece."

* * *

Deep in the Black Forest of Germany was an abandoned monastery where two tall and motionless figures stood under a dilapidated arch, breathing in the dark, cold night air. The undergrowth that had snuck in between the rubble were the only signs of life in the ruins; the two figures only seemed to blend in with their environment.

After what felt like years, one of them finally spoke.

" _It feels different,_ " he said in their native tongue.

Kommissar turned to him and smirked. " _Are you afraid?_ "

Pieter made a face and took another breath. But he said nothing and let the moment pass.

* * *

 **Response to reviews:**

 **Another Random Human** (Jan. 12) - Thanks! You're absolutely right; Luke and Stacie will do everything in their power (somewhat of a pun intended?) to hinder the anti-mutant movement. Oh, don't worry about CR haha; she's 100% good. I do enjoy throwing things at the characters, so let's see how this goes. :)

 **Psychic Guest** (Jan. 12) - *steps out of the room and closes the door* Hello from the other side. I'm happy to be back, though updating less frequently than I had expected. Now, I don't want to spoil anything but I _can_ confirm that all those characters you mentioned will be introduced and/or developed this season. As for CR, I hope this chapter shed some light. (At the very least, you know she isn't nuts.) LOL, if that was your reaction to the last chapter's Jaubrey I have my fingers crossed on your molten dead body getting eaten by your cat (too macabre?). Also don't wanna spoil what's going on with the darkness so... see you next chapter! Thanks for reading!

 **RJRMovieFan** (Jan. 12) - Thank you so much! Feel free to review/PM me if you spot plot holes when looking back on the past two seasons. I'm incredibly anal about continuity and realism (well, as much as can be achieved in a work of fiction) so I'd love to plug some holes up. Yeah, the superhero AU had been explored quite a bit and I think it's cause PP has such a great (potential) ensemble cast. I do hope they take advantage of that in PP3. I myself was surprised by how the Staubrey line went! I honestly didn't have a plan for them at first but I'm liking how it's going so far.

 **xXFreakyUnicorn7689Xx** (Jan. 13) - Thank you!

 **Maggie** (Jan. 13) - Hi, Maggie! Thank you! Haha, it feels weird to scroll through the finished chapter and think, "Wait, that's is it?" Unfortunately, I don't see a long chapter on the horizon, but I'll try! Have a great day.

 **xcombixgirlx** (Jan. 14) - Yeah, I'm back! Sure, feel free to ask me some (non-spoiler-inciting) questions if you need something clarified. :) I'm glad you found it funny! I always thought a JessexChloe friendship would be a lot of fun canonically and fictionally.

* * *

 **A/N:** Now that you've read two chapters of the "new" short-form chapters, how are you guys feeling?


	21. Back to Work

**A/N:** As an apology for a two-week absence, I mashed together two chapters into one rather than just uploading two new chapters. (Don't ask me why, I don't know either.)

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-One: Back to Work**

A shiny, black town car rolled up the stone driveway of the large, neoclassical mansion that, until recently, no one would ever have suspected housed adolescent mutants. The car slowed to stop, aligning the backseat passenger door precisely with the center of the wooden double-doors of the manor. A high-heeled, stockinged foot popped out of the car, followed by the rest of its owner: a hard-faced, raven-haired woman in a dark gray pantsuit.

Charlene breathed in the familiar, Georgia air and cracked a smile. As complicated as her world had become in the last decade or so, it was nice to still have a place that resembled a home. She climbed the short steps to the entrance and pushed the doors open to arrive at the familiar, empty foyer. But after tipping the driver for unnecessarily rolling her one and only suitcase up the front steps (she suspected he only wanted a peek inside the notorious Barden Institute), she immediately sensed what was different; the mansion had a much more lived-in feel to it than it had when she left at the beginning of summer.

Charlene pondered whether she should head up to her room or find her appointed stewards when, suddenly, a bright and bubbly voice greeted her from behind.

"Hi there! Can I help you?"

Charlene spun around and took a second to take in the teenager before her. Dark brown hair framed the girl's round, youthful face, on which was plastered a kind and innocent smile. Being busy with John had led her to miss the registration of new students at Barden so Charlene briefly wondered what the brunette's powers were and if they had something to do with why she didn't sense her arrival out of nowhere. But the proud woman did not want to appear as though she were not in charge of Barden, so instead she said, "I'm looking for Aubrey Posen and Jesse Swanson."

"Oh, they're having a training session downstairs," the girl supplied helpfully. "I'd take you to them but, sorry, I'm already late for choir practice. I hope I was helpful!" She waved, hooked her thumbs under the straps of her backpack, and skipped off toward the southwest corner of the foyer—

And taking a shortcut by passing _through_ the wall.

Charlene blinked and shook her head. She took the girl's words as truth and made her way to the elevator that headed to the new and improved basement training facilities, leaving her suitcase at the bottom of the grand staircase.

* * *

As soon as she had gotten a hold of the couple, Charlene called for a meeting in the Professor's office. Moments later, Jesse and Beca were casually seated on the sofa, while Aubrey sat, stiff and proper, on the chair across the desk which Charlene occupied. Having been placed solely in charge (she hadn't considered Jesse to be her 'partner' in that responsibility) for the longest duration since entering Barden, Aubrey was eager to show off the problem-free state of the school.

"Where's Chloe?" was the assistant's first concern, once they were all settled.

"She's getting her classification today," answered Aubrey. "Jack and Gail took her to D.C. this morning."

Charlene nodded. "Okay. That's fine, we can do without her in this meeting. I'm sure you all know why I've called you all here—"

"We're sorry we didn't plan a surprise welcome home party for you, but in our defense we didn't know you were coming back," Beca said with a hint of mocking.

Charlene pursed her lips to stop herself from smiling. Barely ten minutes home and already her authority and attempt at being professional were undermined by the brunette. "Ah, Beca," she sighed. "The mansion is growing a new wing, the student roster has more than doubled, and news reporters have become a permanent fixture of the grounds' gates, but _some_ things never change at Barden, apparently."

"What's there to change? I'm pretty awesome already. And it's only been three months," added Beca. "I haven't seen my grandparents in a longer time than that—"

"I assumed we're here to talk about the Professor's request," interrupted Aubrey, shutting Beca up with a look.

Charlene nodded. "Though I wouldn't say 'request'… _order_ is more like it. The Professor is adamant about suppressing these so-called 'mutant uprisings.' It speaks ill of Barden when quite a few of these unregistered mutants were once highly regarded in this institute."

They all knew she meant Luke and Stacie, the unfairly assumed ringleaders of the entire group of unregistered mutants.

"But we don't know for a fact that they're behind it," defended Jesse, "… do we?" He looked at Charlene expectantly, as though she would have more information on the matter.

To their dismay, Charlene shook her head. "But it's better than doing nothing at this point. The Professor wants to make it seem like we are," she chose her next words carefully, knowing the relationships that had been built among these mutants, "taking a stand against the _unruly_ sort."

Beca was suddenly reminded of that one night, roughly a year ago, when Aubrey had denounced hidden mutants like her as 'unruly and undisciplined.' It was a bitterly unexpected role reversal, finding herself on the opposite side of that category. "So, basically, it's all for show?" she asked dryly.

"Yes and no," replied Charlene, already expecting Beca to be against the idea. "Yes because, despite the paradise you've been living in these past three months, Barden and its students are still under the scrutiny of Congress and the public. Do not confuse your luxury with their acceptance."

Jesse scratched his ear awkwardly while Beca lifted her head, feeling somewhat vindicated.

"And no because, even if Luke and Stacie _aren't_ behind it," continued Charlene, "if or when you _do_ find them, you can ask for their help in stopping the true culprit. Also... it may give you the closure you need."

Beca rolled her eyes, but it was Aubrey who spoke the words. "And what would you have us do, once we find them?" she asked. "They are technically fugitives of the law…"

Charlene avoided their eyes, looking down at the folder of student records on the desk that she needed to catch up on. "I trust you'll take care of them," she said simply. "The Professor left his order purposely open-ended. For your benefit, I assume."

The three students took Charlene's rifling through the documents as a sign to leave but before they got to the door, she called on them once more. "By the way, Aubrey, Jesse—thank you for taking charge of the trainings. I will take over as primary instructor now that I'm back so that you two can take a load off while you focus on your new mission."

"Are you sure?" frowned Jesse. "I don't mean to be rude but I think someone with experience in _being_ a mutant might be able to work better with the mewbies—er, the new mutants, I mean."

Charlene took no offense, but she did reply with a bit of an edge. "Don't worry, Jesse. I've had plenty of experience with that."

"Charlene has been with the Professor ever since Barden started," reminded Aubrey. "She is as capable of training mutants as we are, Jesse."

"Right. Sorry."

* * *

Chloe drummed her fingers against the polished wooden trim on the armchair of Jack's executive vehicle as they drove through the grey streets of Washington, D.C. The sound of her fingernails clacking against the wood caught Gail's attention and she looked up from her laptop.

"Are you nervous, sweetie?"

"A bit," Chloe confessed sheepishly.

"I'm sorry I couldn't delay it any longer," said Jack. "I guess they ran out of mutants to process."

"It's okay. Although I hoped the extra time would've been enough for me to be able to actually _do_ something."

"In this scenario, it might actually be for the best that you can't," Gail said pointedly.

"But it's embarrassing!" said Chloe. "They'll think I'm pathetic."

"No, they won't," assured Jack. "Besides, you can do _something_ , can't you?"

"I can levitate an eraser six inches above the ground," she replied dully. "I don't exactly require the need for a bulletproof room."

Gail suppressed a smile. "Is that what you and your friends are using to compare each other? Whoever is given the bulletproof room is the most badass mutant?"

"Hang on, it's been three months already," interjected Jack. "Why haven't you progressed beyond levitating small objects?"

" _I don't know_ ," groaned Chloe. "I mean, Jesse picked up where you left off—detaching myself from the world and all that—so we've been doing meditations three times a week to make me more _Zen_. It helps me a little with focusing but I feel like it defeats the purpose…"

"Hmm."

"Maybe we should ask John to step in," Gail suggested carefully. "He has experience dealing with new kinds of powers, and Chloe's the first student with psychic tendencies, isn't she? Maybe he can help her."

Jack narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, giving Chloe the chance to speak up on what she thought of Gail's idea. "That would be nice, but it doesn't seem like he'll be coming back to Barden very soon," she shrugged. "And while we're on the subject, I told Beca about what you suspected John was doing with her Keyblade."

Jack's eyes widened. "And?"

"Well, she reacted as I expected her to, but I defended him. Plus, Kommissar said it was unlikely, but she'll still look into it."

"You spoke to Kommissar, too? When was this?"

Gail raised an eyebrow at Jack's eagerness.

"Um..." Chloe pretended to answer an imaginary text on her phone to buy her time. She had forgotten that she wasn't supposed to tell anyone about their other 'mission,' but she was notorious for being a bad liar, so she decided to go with the half-truth. "A couple of nights ago. She and Pieter were visiting."

Jack made face that showed he didn't expect a goddess like Kommissar to make casual visits, but he let it go. "In any case," he said thoughtfully, "you might still be right. Even if John did know that it was possible to exploit Kingdom Hearts for its energy, he wouldn't pass up the opportunity to make himself rich and famous around the world—unless, of course, he's having that assistant of his do all the work."

Gail rolled her eyes. "I hope this is not another conspiracy against hard-working opportunists."

"Am I the only one who sees something odd about her?" protested Jack. She seems to know quite a lot for an assistant."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Gail said sharply. "Female assistants must only be pretty, stay behind the scenes, and keep their mouths shut? We're in the year twenty-twelve now, Jack. There is no place for misogyny today."

Chloe stifled a laugh as Jack shrank into his seat like a puppy reprimanded for something he didn't do while Gail continued with a passionate chronicle of women's achievements in the workplace.

* * *

Beca passed by the semi-repaired wall of her girlfriend's bedroom and knocked on the wooden structure. "Hey. Jesse told me you were back. How was the trip?"

"I'm a _Three_ ," Chloe replied grimly, grabbing a change of clothes from her wardrobe.

Beca's face fell. "What? Did you tell them you couldn't—" She bit her tongue. Chloe didn't like being told what she literally couldn't do. "I mean, I thought that was the point of being able to change categories? You could have started low first and then get re-classified later."

"I asked, but they said that that only applies to mutants who develop _unknown_ powers," said Chloe. "Unfortunately, I already know what I can _potentially_ do, so they based my classification on that."

"You could have lied," suggested Beca, sitting down on Chloe's bed. "They didn't have to know that."

"I was hooked up to a lie detector and they explicitly asked me if I knew the extent of my powers."

Beca frowned. "You were hooked up to a lie detector? None of us was…"

"Well, then the silver lining must be that _I'm_ the most badass of us all," Chloe said cheerfully. "I'm going to take a shower before dinner. Wait for me?"

"Of course." Beca leaned back against Chloe's large, fluffy pillows as she wondered how Homeland Security could be so shrewd to assume that Chloe was more powerful than she seemed.

And speaking of people that were more powerful than they seemed, a few minutes after she had closed her eyes to rest, Beca began to hear the unmistakable sounds of Fat Amy approaching—unmistakable because of the yelps coming from those she pushed out of the way by deliberately filling up the hallway with her massive size.

Once she was near enough, Fat Amy slimmed down to fit through her bedroom hole and greeted Beca with an upward jerk of her head. "'Sup. You here for ginger?"

"Yeah, she's in the shower."

"In the shower? Why aren't you with her?"

Beca pursed her lips and chose not to respond. Instead, she folded her hands behind her head and lowered herself to lie on her back.

Fat Amy put her hands on her hips exasperatedly. "You know, if you two are trying to keep your relationship low-key, maybe don't do such obvious, sickening couple-y stuff," she advised.

"What are you talking about? What couple-y stuff?"

Fat Amy started listing them with her fingers. "Exchanging really obvious meaningful looks every five seconds; subconsciously reaching for each other's hands like you're constantly drowning in a river; giving each other disgustingly sweet pet names—"

"Excuse me, we don't have pet names," interjected Chloe, walking out of the bathroom fully dressed and smiling.

"But you have to admit to the sexual tension," Fat Amy said with a wink.

"Whoa, hey, we don't have—there's no—how did you get to sexual tension?" stuttered Beca, her pitch rising with every word. This soon in their relationship, doing anything remotely sexual with Chloe was the _last_ thing on her list... of inescapable thoughts.

"How can you tell if two people have sexual tension?" Chloe asked in genuine curiosity.

"Well, it's sort of a gift," bragged Fat Amy. "A secondary power, even. Basically, it's when two people are always just a hair's width away from banging each other's brains out. And you just know that when they do, the universe stops just to be witness to that glorious moment."

"Wow, Amy, I didn't take you for a romantic."

Fat Amy shook her head quickly to dissolve that presumption. "There's not much romance involved if you play it right. Take my anonymous casual encounter at the airport hotel the day I arrived here. I knew I was in for a mind blowing romp the moment I saw the guy's _huge_ mass—and I'm not talking about his donger. I'm sure you know what I mean," she added with another wink.

Beca grimaced in disgust and tried not to visualize any of the words Fat Amy had just said. Unfortunately, Chloe was not as averse to it.

"Wait, what do you mean?"

"Chlo, I don't think you want to—"

"His tongue was very big and very long," Fat Amy enthused. "It trekked up _my_ star, if you know what I mean." When Chloe clearly didn't, she explained that it "boldly went where no man has gone before."

"Okay, we get it!" Beca rolled of Chloe's bed hastily. "Chloe, let's go before I lose what's left of my appetite."

"Hold on, Becs," Chloe said before turning back to Fat Amy. "Are you being funny or is this guy's tongue _really_ that long?"

Fat Amy looked amused. "Wow, Red, I didn't think you were into that. But, um, I guess in hindsight it _was_ the longest—"

"Why are we still talking about this?" groaned Beca.

"Beca! The guy might be Bumper!"

Beca winced in disgust at the idea of Bumper's tongue being where it was, and then winced once more on Fat Amy's behalf. Regardless of who had gotten the worse end of that deal, she still didn't understand why Chloe was so excited about it.

"Bumper?" Fat Amy frowned. "Isn't he one of your former classmates?"

Chloe nodded eagerly. "He disappeared to join our other friends as an unregistered mutant a few days after the MRA was signed. If he was at the airport when you arrived then—"

Beca finally caught up to her train of thought and pulled out her phone. "Do you remember where he was headed?" she asked, navigating through her gallery to get to the photos of their pool party a year ago. "And is this him?"

Fat Amy came closer and squinted at the photo. "Yeah, that's him. Bumper, huh? He had a ticket to… I think I read S-A-N on the airport code."

"San Diego," muttered Beca. "That's far."

"Do you think he went there to meet up with Luke and Stacie?" asked Chloe. "Or was he just going home to his family?"

Beca shook her head. "I remember him saying he was from Colorado. Besides, he's not on good terms with his parents. Going home wouldn't be his first choice. But, Chloe," she sighed, after making one realization, "even if he _did_ meet up with the others, that was three months ago. Luke's a smart guy; I doubt they stay in one place for a long time."

"Still, it's a place to start," Chloe said determinedly. "Come on, we should tell Bree." Without waiting for a reply, Chloe took Beca's hand and briskly traveled through the mansion's stairs and corridors to the dining hall, where Aubrey was undoubtedly doing her Head Girl duties and making sure dinner went along peacefully.

They entered the busy hall without much fanfare, save for one or two heads turning in their direction out of instinct. Beca ignored them while Chloe greeted nearly everyone they passed on their way to the end of the table, where Aubrey was sitting and talking to another student. Seeing the looks on Beca and Chloe's faces as they approached, Aubrey excused herself from the conversation and listened while Chloe recounted what Fat Amy had revealed and confirmed.

"San Diego?" repeated Aubrey. "That's far."

"That's what I said," nodded Beca. "Do you think that's where he rendezvoused with the others, or could it just be a vacation or something?"

"It could be anything. Perhaps we should try to find out how Alice and Unicycle left as well," Aubrey said thoughtfully. "But I wouldn't get my hopes up, guys. It's not likely they're still in San Diego. Luke would be smarter than that."

"But it's still a better starting place than zero, right?" Chloe said hopefully, above Beca's repeated, 'That's what I said!' "Maybe they left a trace that we could track them down with."

"Maybe…" Aubrey still looked unconvinced, but whatever she had planned to say was interrupted by Jesse sliding into the seat beside her, flapping an envelope against his palm.

"Hey, guys!" he greeted, placing the letter on the table. " _This_ arrived in the morning post. It's handwritten and everything so I didn't think it was spam."

"Gross, who still writes snail mail?" muttered Beca.

"Whoever sent this, apparently," said Jesse. "There's no return address though."

"Should we open it?" asked Chloe.

"It's addressed to the Barden Institute," said Aubrey, "so it should be opened by whoever's in charge. That means Charlene."

"But you're _kind of_ in charge, too," goaded Beca. She had no particular interest in the contents of the letter, but she'd never pass up an opportunity to trick Aubrey into breaking the rules. "Aren't you supposed to take care of the menial tasks around here? Charlene probably doesn't have time for this."

"I guess you're right," Aubrey said slowly, turning the letter over in her hands. "It's pretty light so it's probably just an inquiry."

"Or a death threat," Chloe said casually. When they all turned to her in shock she explained, "Jack and Gail get a few of those from some anti-mutant groups. They said they're mostly harmless anyway."

"Mostly?" Jesse gulped while Aubrey went ahead and peeled the flap open.

"It's…" she frowned, "not well-written, that's for sure."

Jesse leaned into her and read aloud, "'Help us please'… 'my daughter is like you'—mutant, I guess? 'If she go at Barden, she has a better life.' Oh…" He pursed his lips sympathetically as he continued reading. "It says she can't afford to bring her daughter here so she gave her address in Miami."

"She?"

"It's signed 'Itzel.' And that's not all; she says her daughter _doesn't want_ to go—if I didn't misunderstand her English, that is," said Jesse. "I think Itzel wants us to go convince her daughter to come to Barden."

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time you did that, right?" Beca asked Aubrey.

Aubrey nodded. "We still do sometimes. But, lately, more people are coming to us than we are to them. I suppose Jesse and I can go tomorrow after class—"

"Wait, what about San Diego?" Chloe interjected.

"What _about_ San Diego?" Jesse asked, looking confused.

"I think we have to deal with this first, Chloe," said Aubrey, gesturing at the letter. "It was stamped five days ago and we shouldn't keep, um, Itzel waiting. We can go to San Diego on the weekend."

"Wait, why are we going to San Diego?"

"We found out that Bumper was headed there when he left," answered Beca. "It might lead us to the unregistered mutants."

"Oh, I see. Hey, can Beca come with us tomorrow?" Jesse asked suddenly.

"What—why? I don't want to," Beca said truthfully, her eyebrow raised at Jesse.

"I just think it'll be more comfortable for Itzel's daughter to see that Barden is made up a diverse group of students," said Jesse. "No offense to anyone, but Bree might be a little too upper-class for her, and I'm too handsome to take seriously." Two pairs of eyes rolled while Chloe giggled quietly. "But Beca has that right mix of 'I-don't-give-a-fuck-about-labels' and 'we're-all-in-this-together,' you know?"

" _We're all in this together?_ "

"If Beca's going, then can I come, too?" asked Chloe.

"Sorry, Chlo, you have a special training session with Charlene tomorrow," said Jesse. "Apparently Jack sent her an e-mail asking her to take over. She told me when she asked about your progress."

"What progress?" Chloe said sarcastically before sighing in defeat. "Fine. Just promise to bring me back a Cuban sandwich, okay?" She looked at Beca pleadingly with her big, blue eyes and batted her thick lashes.

Beca was starting to understand what Fat Amy meant about those looks. Whether it was playful, happy, or—God forbid—angry, having Chloe's eyes on her never failed to make Beca's breath catch in her throat. There was always a hint of desire laced in those looks that Beca hoped was not imagined. And maybe she also understood Fat Amy's talk of the universe stopping, because she had never wanted to stop time as much as she did when she was being the sole receiver of Chloe's attention.

"'kay," she said softly. It was all she could muster without turning into mush before their eyes.

* * *

"Okay, now try to visualize the kettlebell rising into the air," Charlene instructed gently for the fourteenth time.

Frustrated, Chloe decided that she was past being polite and adhering to the woman's "tried and tested" methods (despite their obvious lack of success so far) and cried, "It's too heavy! I don't think this is working, Charlene."

"Stop trying to think of it as having weight, Chloe. Just visualize it— _visualize it!_ " Charlene was getting equally frustrated; she had never come across a student with such stubborn and unyielding powers.

"I've done the _visualizing_ and it doesn't work! I'm going back a step when I already know that the key to it is clearing my mind," said Chloe, waving her hands wildly in desperation.

"You've been clearing your mind for the past eight weeks and out of the twenty-five times you only exhibited your powers twice! How exactly is that the _key_ to your progress?"

Chloe blinked. "Twice? I thought it was just once…"

"Oh." Charlene walked over to the exercise equipment, where she had placed Chloe's documents. "I guess Jesse didn't tell you about your last session yet. He said… oh, my bad. He only _suspected_ that you performed outward telepathy but he didn't give more details than that."

Chloe sighed and sank down onto the mat. "I'm _exhausted_ , and this isn't helping," she said. "Maybe I need a break from power training. Can I give it a couple of days before I try again?"

Charlene looked ready to disagree but nodded reluctantly when she saw that Chloe wasn't budging from her hunched position. She glanced back at the folder again. "On the bright side, your physical combat skills have improved greatly." When Chloe didn't seem cheered by that, she grimaced and said, "I'm sorry, Chloe. You'll get it eventually, I'm sure of it."

Chloe waited for Charlene to leave the room before falling on her back to stare at the ceiling. She listened to her heartbeat, adjusting her breathing experimentally to get it to quicken and then slow—anything to occupy her mind and distract her from yet another disappointing session.

"Despair does not suit your face, Chlobear."

Chloe shot upright, turning her head toward the source of those voice. "Kommissar?"

The blonde goddess stepped out from literally nowhere, closely followed by Pieter. The man seemed amused by all the equipment around him and began to inspect them one by one like a child.

"Why are you here?" asked Chloe. "We don't have anything to report, not after we just met the other night. And Beca's not here right now—"

"I am not here to talk about the leak," replied Kommissar, in a tone that, surprisingly, lacked the usual confidence that came with the intimidating woman.

"Is something wrong?"

"No."

"Then what—Oh." Chloe smiled, catching on to a possible reason why Kommissar seemed uncomfortable. "We can just hang out… if you want to?"

Kommissar nodded and gave her a rare smile. It was a kind one, soft and genuine, unlike the ones Chloe was used to seeing her give Beca. As she adjusted herself into a more comfortable sitting position, Chloe wondered if she could use this time to get Kommissar to ease up on her girlfriend.

"It's not very often that I speak to someone who is not Pieter," said Kommissar, lowering herself down to sit beside Chloe. Pieter stopped juggling the dumbbells and glanced up at the sound of his name. "I admit, it gets lonely after hundreds of years."

"You can always come here," said Chloe, forgoing her curiosity for kindness. "I'd love to see more of you. I'm sure the others would, too."

A look in Kommissar's eye told Chloe she was considering it for a moment, but then Kommissar shook her head. "You are kind, but it cannot be done. Our staying here will upset the balance."

"We are already tempting the fates with our visits," added Pieter, eyeing Kommissar closely, as though blaming her for them.

"How does this balance thing work anyway?" Chloe asked, looking between the two of them. "When did it even start?"

"Since the world began," Pieter answered simply. "There has always been the darkness, as there has always been light."

"But Pieter and I were not always in charge of keeping the balance," said Kommissar. "It was a responsibility inherited by people who understood the matters of the darkness. I received my calling over eight hundred years ago, and Pieter was to be my companion."

Chloe bobbed her head thoughtfully. "How long do you have to be in charge for?"

Kommissar looked away. "I don't know. None of the previous gods and goddesses has gone as long as we have."

"I guess that means you two are doing a good job," Chloe said optimistically. "That's good, right?"

"It is interesting," Kommissar said after a while. "Throughout the years, we have seen mankind change so dramatically."

"One century they are fighting, the next century they are not," Pieter said amusedly, "then the next century they are fighting again. It's funny."

"Our job was easy in the beginning," said Kommissar. "When the darkness became too powerful, it culminated in man simply fighting each other. And in the end the light won. This cycle repeated itself for years and years. But lately it is more difficult. Mankind does not see light and dark so easily as they see black and white. They change the way darkness finds itself in their world... in this world."

"I don't understand," frowned Chloe.

"There is some darkness borne out of light," said Pieter. "The people think they are doing the right thing and it gives them light; but they forget that wherever there is light there is shadow."

"So the darkness creeps past them, cunning like a snake," continued Kommissar. "It will avoid a great conflict like in the past, so that the light cannot catch up. It will fester and spread, masquerading as the light, until the world knows no less."

Chloe felt a chill run down her spine. "You don't think that will really happen, do you?"

Kommissar looked at Chloe. "Some might say it has already happened," she said solemnly. When Chloe swallowed worriedly, she added, "But I believe that it is from the darkest moments that a light that shines the brightest arises. Just like you... Chloe."

Chloe felt her cheeks warm. She knew Kommissar was being serious when she didn't use her pet name. "M-me?"

"Your Heartless was one of the most powerful Heartless that we did not create," Pieter informed her. "Yet you survived it and, for some reason, you give us power."

"What—?"

"What Pieter means is," Kommissar began slowly, holding a hand up to him as though asking for the responsibility of explaining, "you affect everyone around you with a light that is unexpected, considering your close history with the darkness."

Chloe looked down thoughtfully. "I wouldn't have even known this about myself if it weren't for you. Even the whole light and dark thing, it's scary to think about what could happen right under our noses. I guess we're really lucky that the world had you two looking out for it all this time."

"It has not always been easy," admitted Kommissar. "But it is all that we know."

* * *

Luke and Stacie shaded themselves from the hot, mid-afternoon sun leaning against the white, peeling wall of the shabby apartment complex they had found somewhere deep in a residential area populated mostly by minorities.

"Where's Lilly?" asked Stacie, squinting around the corner of the building to see if their companion had followed them all the way through the gate.

"She saw a bug in one of the bushes on the way in. I think she's playing with it," chuckled Luke.

Stacie shook her head in amusement. "She's quite a character, that one. Hella useful, though."

Luke nodded just as Lilly came running—an odd sight to see, as she was usually the most graceful of mutants—into the small courtyard, moving her lips rapidly.

"What is she saying?"

"I have literally no idea."

" _Your friends from Barden are here,_ " Lilly repeated in a louder whisper.

Luke and Stacie froze. They weren't expecting having to face their former schoolmates _here._ But there was no time to hide, or think, so they just stared at the entrance, waiting for the inevitable reunion—

"I still think you should have gotten the sandwich _after_ we met the girl."

"I didn't want to risk it! Besides, I was hungry—"

The familiar sight and sounds of a bickering Aubrey and Beca were oddly comforting for the two, even after they mimicked their frozen stances seconds later and engaged in a staring contest with them from across the muddy courtyard.

"What's the hold up?" came Jesse's voice from behind Aubrey and Beca, and soon enough he emerged through the gates after them.

Luke didn't know where to look—at his oldest friend of eleven years, the friend he affectionately grew to see as a little sister. Neither choice made the sense of guilt any less pronounced, judging by the equal looks of hurt in both pairs of eyes. Stacie, however, didn't find it as difficult to choose where to settle her eyes. Months of hoping that her feelings for Aubrey would go away by seeing less of the blonde were proven to be in vain when her first thought upon seeing Aubrey again was to wonder why she had been stupid enough to leave.

Lilly and Jesse, excluded from this emotional four-way stare-down, chose instead to flicker their eyes back and forth between their companions, the former hoping for something exciting to happen while the other prayed for a peaceful encounter.

A door bursting open upstairs followed by a passionate argument in rapid Spanish broke their trance. All six heads looked up to the second floor of the apartment, where a petite Latina was attempting to hook the strap of an overstuffed backpack on her shoulder while a woman—probably her mother—attempted to drag her back inside. They, too, froze upon seeing the six faces below staring up at them.

"I think we should probably get inside," said Jesse, when no one spoke for a solid seven seconds.

* * *

Ten minutes later, they all found themselves cramped in a tiny living room. The walls were covered in dull green wallpaper and the sunlight flooding the room through the jalousie windows colored everything with a yellowish hue. Some of them remained standing while the others sat on various pieces of mismatched furniture. It was hot and uncomfortable, but just the right conditions necessary to blow past the awkward tension between the mutants.

Aubrey began the conversation without hesitation. "I don't understand. _You_ sent us a letter asking us to come here to convince your daughter to go to Barden, right?" she asked the older woman, whom she assumed was Itzel, directly.

Itzel glanced at her daughter in confusion. Apparently she didn't understand English—or at least Aubrey's rapid English—very well. But judging by her surprised expression, Itzel's daughter did. "She did that?" When they all turned to her, she explained, "I am Florencia, the daughter. But you can call me Flo. You said my mother wrote you a letter? What did she write?"

Observing Flo's sideways glare at the older woman, Aubrey fidgeted uncomfortably, not wishing to provoke a family drama. "Um…"

Itzel seemed to understand the problem and began explaining herself to her daughter in Spanish. Another brief argument ensued before Flo put her hand up and addressed Aubrey once more. "I am sorry, my mother doesn't know what she is doing," she said. "I do not want to go to Barden."

Her mother began protesting again but was quickly suppressed when Flo continued. "My mother thinks I should learn to control… whatever is happening to me," she said. "She thinks Barden can help me because of what you did in Isla de San Juan. 'They can control themselves,' she told me. 'You should learn from them' because I cannot control what happens to _me_."

"What happens to you?" Luke asked gently.

"It comes at different times. I cannot show you until it happens," Flo said hesitantly. "But I… I become water."

Five pairs of eyebrows shot up. "Come again?"

"I don't know how," said Flo. "Since I was young, I was very good at swimming. My mother said I was special, but I thought her meaning was that I had talent. But then… strange things started happening even when I was not in the water. Now that I'm older and work at the restaurant, I drop things. I dropped the plate with the food one time, but it was not my fault! My hands... my hands became water and they fell!"

"Oh, my God," whispered Jesse. "She becomes water and her name is _Flo_. This could not be any more perfect—"

Beca elbowed him in the ribs to shut him up and asked, "So why don't you want to come to Barden? We can help you control that—stop it from happening at inconvenient times."

Flo seemed hesitant once again and, to the Barden students' surprise, it was Stacie who answered. "Because she can't register, obviously. That's why Flo contacted _us._ "

"So you guys are doing recruitment and training now?" Aubrey muttered sarcastically, being careful to keep her eyes ahead and not on Stacie.

"We always have, FYI," replied Stacie. She was trying to be civil but she also couldn't resist proving Aubrey wrong.

"But registering can be really helpful," Jesse said quickly to diffuse the tension. "You will have the best training for mutants in the entire world, literally. Your food, living expenses, and education are all free so you don't have to worry about the money."

"That's not the issue in her case, Jesse," said Luke.

"Then what is?"

Aubrey's eyes widened slightly when she arrived at the conclusion. She pursed her lips and said in a clipped tone, "You are undocumented immigrants."

"My brother is close to getting a job that will sponsor his work visa," Flo quickly defended. "We just need some time—"

"Don't worry. We won't tell anyone," assured Beca. "Will we, Aubrey?"

Aubrey shook her head slowly.

"Thank you," sighed Flo. "But you understand now why I cannot go to Barden, and I cannot hide what I am from my boss anymore. They will find out and have my family deported."

At the word 'deported,' Itzel perked up and shuffled over to the refrigerator, where a piece of paper was pinned by a magnet. She returned to the living room and waved in front of her. "International students," she said emphatically, pointing at the bottom corner of the page.

"That's right!" Jesse perked up. "Flo, you can register as an international student. You wouldn't have to expose yourself because you'd be registering as… where are you from?"

"Guatemala," answered Flo. She looked considerably more hopeful. "This is possible? So my mother and brother can still stay?"

"No," said Aubrey, at the same time Jesse said, "Yes."

"No, they can't," repeated Aubrey, answering everyone's questioning looks. "Well, not legally at least. Fat Amy told me that when she registered as an international student they made sure her family members had a legitimate residence in Australia to avoid, well, illegally immigrating to the U.S."

Flo's shoulders sagged. "So then—"

Itzel grabbed her arm and squeezed it. " _No,_ " she said firmly. "I go. You will stay. You will have a better life in America, and it is legal."

Flo had another conversation with her mother in Spanish. At various points in the middle of it, things got heated and emotional, and the mutants had no choice but to look away to give them some semblance of privacy in the cramped living room.

"She says she will go back to Guatemala," Flo announced in a deadened tone moments later. "She and my brother… just so I can stay and live with no worries."

Nobody spoke throughout the uncomfortable silence that followed. Flo seemed dejected and confused, while her mother continued to insist—softly this time—that she go to Barden.

"Your mother just wants what's best for you, Flo," Stacie said softly, to the others' surprise. But it was more of an observation than an appeal against her own interest, as they soon learned. "But who determines what's best is still _you_. And who should be responsible for giving that to you is also up to you."

Flo nodded at Stacie's words before turning to the other side of the room, as though waiting to hear a counter-argument. Aubrey and Jesse exchanged looks, struggling with that to say that could justify asking a daughter to send her mother away while she lived a life of restrained luxury. In the end, it was Beca who had the last say.

"Go where you have the least to lose," she advised simply, echoing a wise Australian.

* * *

"Oh! Here it is, here it is!"

Chloe turned up the volume of the TV in the kitchen excitedly. It was Saturday morning and most of the students were still in bed recovering from a hectic first week of school. Chloe was a natural early riser so a lot of the alone time Beca had with her occurred in the mornings. It was a small sacrifice for the girl who could sleep until sunset.

Beca smiled at Chloe's adorable enthusiasm, grabbing two bowls and filling them up with cereal from the row of cereal dispensers (another benefit of living without money concerns) in the pantry: one bowl of Froot Loops for Chloe and one bowl of Lucky Charms for her. She walked back to the breakfast bar just as a slideshow of names and faces appeared on the TV screen.

"They're all Category Zero," noted Chloe as they watched the latest Public Service Announcement.

"I guess they saved the lamest for last," said Beca. "I never noticed they didn't put their powers on the screen. At least there's _some_ privacy."

"I'm pretty sure they tell law enforcement though." Chloe's eyes were glued to the screen, waiting for her five seconds of fame. "This is probably so that no one would—there I am, there I am!" Chloe bounced on her seat excitedly as a full body image of her, followed by her headshot appeared on the screen.

" _Chloe Beale. Atlanta, Georgia. Category Three,_ " announced the deep voice of the narrator.

"Cool, it's just like the Hunger Games!"

Beca raised an eyebrow. "How is this like the Hunger Games?"

"It's like we're tributes being announced to the public."

" _For a complete list of mutants in your area, visit www . dhs .gov/mutants. This has been a public service announcement by the Department of Homeland Security._ "

"For a complete list of douchebags in the DHS, visit the list pinned to the library's bulletin board," Beca muttered, pouring milk into Chloe's cereal and sliding it in front of her. "So now that you've seen your claim to fame, what else do you wanna do today?"

"Well, I wanted to go to San Diego but you guys already saw Luke and Stacie…"

"Yeah," Beca said grimly, the memory of their less than satisfactory departure from Miami still fresh in her mind. "As long as they have that Lilly girl, it'll be impossible for us to track them down."

"At least we know they're not the ones causing trouble," said Chloe, swirling her cereal around with a spoon.

"Not that it helps our mission," said Aubrey, entering the kitchen with Jesse. "Good morning."

"Morning," Beca greeted with her mouth full of cereal. "Where are you two off to today? Picking out new shrubs to add to the garden?"

"No. We already did that two weeks ago," replied Aubrey, missing the obvious sarcasm.

"We're picking up a mewbie from the airport," answered Jesse. "He had some trouble with his transfer papers, that's why he's coming in late."

Beca feigned surprise. "You're picking up a mewbie and you didn't ask _me_ to come and break out into High School Musical's classic anthem of togetherness?"

Aubrey rolled her eyes. "It's not as if you were such a big help last time. You convinced Flo _not_ to come with us!"

"I _advised_ her to take the path of least resistance; the convincing was all her own doing."

"What are you two thinking of doing today?" Jesse asked Chloe, ignoring the other two's bickering.

"I don't know yet. Maybe we'll head downtown or something," Chloe said brightly. "Oh! By the way, Charlene told me something about you recording my telepathy during our last session. What was that about?"

"Oh." Jesse turned pink around the ears. "Uh, it was just a suspicion—"

"As your report said. But what did I do?" Chloe said excitedly, not taking Jesse's reluctance as a hint.

"Um, well, I couldn't really tell if you were doing it but I… envisioned something that you... might have been thinking of at the time."

"But I was meditating," frowned Chloe. "I shouldn't have been—" Her eyes widened when she recalled that particular session. "Oh, my God— _you saw that_!?"

"Shh!" But Jesse was too late; Aubrey and Beca turned in surprise at Chloe's squeal.

"What's going on?" asked Beca.

"Nothing," Jesse said hurriedly. "We were just talking about a _slight_ progress in Chloe's training. But it's tiny—insignificant even. Right, Chlo?"

"Right," Chloe said breathlessly, though her wide smile was still indicative of her joy. "It's no biggie."

Aubrey and Beca exchanged skeptical looks. "Well, we'd better get going," said Aubrey. "See you guys later."

"Text us if you're in the city, maybe we could have an early lunch together with the mewbie," offered Jesse, still avoiding Chloe's eyes.

Aubrey turned and narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Wait, you're going downtown?"

"Maybe," shrugged Beca. "Why?"

"Neither of you can drive," she pointed out. "And don't you dare tell me you're going to _fly_ there."

"We'll find a way then—just go!" Beca ushered the couple away with a gust of air and huffed. "I don't know how she manages to be both an annoying older sister _and_ a nagging mother at the same time."

"Gee, you'll use any adjective other than 'responsible' to describe Bree, won't you?" teased Chloe. "But I do want to go to the city and I know just the way to do it."

"Oh?"

* * *

Chloe screamed and wrapped her arms and legs tighter around Beca's neck and waist, respectively, as they turned a gradual corner down a slope.

"Don't worry, I won't drop you!" Beca yelled over the sound of air rushing past their ears.

"I'm not worried—this is awesome!" Chloe yelled back, releasing another throaty scream as she rode piggyback on Beca and her unfortunate skateboard, whose wheels were taking a beating from going over sixty-five miles an hour.

It had been a while since Beca took her board anywhere, but she hardly needed it; they were practically flying through the air anyway. The board was just there to make it seem like they were just two ordinary, albeit crazy, people— _not_ mutants. They slowed down once the number of cars on the road made it too dangerous for them, and began walking once they got to the city.

Chloe insisted on getting ice cream from her favorite store so Beca tucked her board under her arm and followed Chloe to a row of shops around a courtyard where the ice cream parlor was.

"Hey!" a man they passed exclaimed, doing a double take when they walked by him. "You—the redhead!"

Chloe made to look back in surprise but Beca grabbed her wrist and ushered her to continue walking and ignore him. The tone of his voice did not indicate that the man was catcalling, but at that moment Beca would have preferred it to what her gut was telling her.

"You're a Three!" the man yelled, causing others around them to stare.

Her suspicions confirmed, Beca had half a mind to turn around and just leave the area, but to her dismay Chloe thought otherwise and turned to address the man.

"Chloe, don't—"

" _You're_ the one who always says we need to stand up for ourselves and not let the MRA define how we live," Chloe said with a teasing smirk. "Come on, Becs, this is our chance!"

Beca let out a frustrated groan as Chloe slipped her wrist out of Beca's grasp and marched back toward the man. As much as she adored her girlfriend's sense of optimism, Beca was worried that Chloe didn't understand how dangerously un-funny the situation could quickly become.

"Hello, sir," Chloe greeted politely, "I guess you've seen that PSA—"

"Is she one of those mutants…?" another woman sitting nearby asked and squinted at Chloe.

"Yeah, she is. The one they said is Category Three!"

"What does that mean again?"

Beca tugged on the back of Chloe's shirt. " _Chloe."_

"Beca, we have a responsibility to be the face of mutant kind," Chloe tutted patiently before turning back to the gathering crowd. "Yes, sir, under the Mutant Registration Act, I _am_ a Category Three mutant but—"

"That means she's too powerful to stop!" another bystander pointed an accusing finger at Chloe. "You shouldn't be allowed near civilians!"

A murmur of surprise ran through the small crowd and Beca hoped it was enough for Chloe to realize her mistake in engaging them. But it only spurred her on.

"Actually, ma'am, that's not entirely true—" began Chloe.

"She doesn't look that dangerous to me," an elderly lady spoke up defiantly, and received a mixed response from those around her: some agreed vocally while others shook their heads.

"What's going on here?"

"Oh, fuck it," muttered Beca, as a police officer approached them.

"She's a Category Three mutant!" someone yelled, while few others were quick to chastise the yeller for his fear mongering.

"Settle down," the officer ordered in a booming voice. "Ma'am, I think it's best if you just get on your way."

"Believe me, that's what I'm _trying_ to do," Beca replied, taking Chloe by the elbow. "Chloe, _come on_."

But Chloe fixed Beca with a fiercely determined look and said, "Is this how you see life turning out for us? With people gathering in crowds whenever we step outside Barden, and being asked to leave when we're just out for ice cream?"

Beca should have trusted her instincts to _not_ try to stare Chloe down, because it only reminded her of how bright Chloe's eyes got when she was happy, as opposed to how painful it was to look at them if she were upset. Cursing herself internally, she turned away from Chloe and back to the police officer.

"Look, officer, we just… wanted to get some ice cream," she finished lamely. "We didn't mean to cause any trouble."

Chloe beamed and turned to the officer as well. "We hope you wouldn't mind helping us change people's perceptions of mutants, sir," she cajoled. "We're not dangerous, and institutions like Barden are doing great in—"

But the same woman that had called Chloe "unstoppable" interrupted her with a seemingly reasonable argument: "That's not really the point here, young lady," she said. "You are a potential danger to us, whether you intend to be one or not. I think the decent thing to do is to ease our anxiety and just leave."

Her logic seemed to strike down Chloe's last pillar of optimism, and Beca watched Chloe shrink as she believed the woman's words, which made the ordeal even more upsetting. So, despite knowing that it was a bad idea, Beca turned to the crowd once more. "Cut her some slack, okay? She can't actually _do_ the things that made her a Category Three yet," she reasoned. "It was just a precaution."

Beca felt her cheeks heat up when her pronouncement was met with awkward silence. It was as though the crowd was noticing her for the first time. She hoped that her presence would make them see that Chloe was not dangerous to someone as small as she was. What she _didn't_ want them to see was an extra mutant.

"You… you kids up at that school, they're training all of you, aren't they?" a man asked tentatively. "Even her," he pointed back at Chloe.

Beca scratched her ear uncomfortably and nodded slowly.

"And you think we shouldn't feel threatened by that?"

"We're training her to _control_ them eventually, not to—"

"Eventually? So she can't actually control them now?" another man asked pointedly, eliciting another murmur of worry from the crowd. "And you try to sell us this bullshit that she's not dangerous?"

"Hey, come on, you're twisting my words—" Beca made the mistake of raising her hands angrily, which simultaneously caused the crowd to back away from them and the officer's hand to fly to his gun holster. "Ma'am, I suggest you stand down!" he ordered. "What Category mutant are you?"

Beca's mouth had suddenly dried and her heart thudded against her chest, but that didn't stop her from rolling her eyes at the overreaction as she lowered her hands. She felt Chloe gripping the bottom of her shirt tightly. "I'm a Two," she answered as calmly as she could. "Funny how you overreact to a Three when a Two _could_ be just as dangerous."

"Beca!" Chloe said warningly.

Keeping one hand on the holster, the officer tilted his head toward the radio on his shoulder and called for backup.

"Oh, come on!" Beca cried exasperatedly. "We're not even _doing anything_!"

"Ma'am, I am _this_ close to charging you with disturbing the peace—!"

"Look, we'll just go, okay?" Chloe cut in hurriedly. "Sorry for trying to make people open their minds a bit."

They turned to find an opening in the crowd when someone yelled back at her. "Fuck you, bitch! You shouldn't even be here in the first place!"

" _What did you just call her!_?" growled Beca, angrily taking a step toward the foulmouthed offender, only to cause more panic and uproar.

In the next few seconds, everything seemed to slow down, but Beca could make out every sound—the faint sirens of incoming police cars, the panicked cries of people rushing to get away from her, and Chloe's fearful plea to the officer. She glanced behind her quickly to look at the armed police officer and felt her heart leap into her throat when she saw a gun pointed in her direction—blocked by Chloe.

The moment she heard a loud bang, Beca immediately grabbed Chloe around the waist and kicked off the ground hard, making sure to spin them both around to keep Chloe away from the line of fire, which was great thinking on her part since another shot rang out immediately after the first. When they were safely out of range, she adjusted Chloe's position so that she wasn't dangling precariously fifty feet in the air.

They hadn't gotten that far from the mall—only a few blocks away, flying over low-rise buildings—when, after quadruple checking if Chloe was okay, the adrenaline wore off and Beca started to feel the pain coming from her right arm. "I'm gonna put you down for a bit, okay?" she gasped, trying to shift Chloe's entire weight onto her left arm. She could feel something wet and warm trickling down to her elbow.

"Beca—you're bleeding!"

"It's okay, I think it's just a flesh wound…"

They landed on the rooftop of a small building and Beca sank to her knees in exhaustion.

"Beca, I'm so sorry, I should have listened to you!" rambled Chloe, her eyes shining with tears and worry, as she helped Beca lie down. "I'll call for help—"

"Aubrey and Jesse are at the airport," Beca reminded Chloe patiently. The throbbing in her arm didn't actually hurt as much as she would have expected from a gunshot wound, although the amount of blood she could see out of the corner of her eye made her woozy.

"I meant 911," answered Chloe, putting her phone against her ear. Beca chose not to stop Chloe from making the call, even though she knew the police would be alerted once she did. Instead, she remembered all the first aid charts and brochures found around her old apartment, and brought her left hand over the wound to apply pressure, wincing in disgust and pain as she felt the warm wetness of her flesh.

"Here, use this." Without hesitation, Chloe crossed her arms, pulled her shirt over her head, and quickly folded the discarded clothing over Beca's wound. She looked down, untied her belt, and proceeded to create a makeshift tourniquet.

"How did you know… to do that?" asked Beca, hearing the words come out more slowly and more lethargic than they did in her mind.

"Aubrey's first aid class, which you insist on not attending for no good reason," Chloe smiled softly, finishing up and leaning back to sit on her heels.

Beca returned the smile, her eyes raking shamelessly over Chloe's flawless upper body. Seeing it up close didn't help her already active imagination. "This is a good look on you," she joked. "You should _only_ wear this, all the time."

The sirens of an ambulance masked Chloe's twinkling laugh. After a delay wherein they had to explain to the building's security that there was an injured woman on their rooftop, Beca was soon being lifted onto a gurney and into the van, with Chloe following close behind. The paramedic kept asking Beca whether she was in pain because, apparently, her injury was more than just a flesh wound; the bullet had also grazed her humerus. Beca wished the morphine had been injected before she was informed of this, because the minute the visual got into her head the pain doubled.

"Do you have a blanket or something?" she groaned.

"What?" the paramedic gave her a confused look while administering the morphine.

Beca waved her free hand over at Chloe, who was rubbing her arms and shivering from the cold. The paramedic turned and did a double take. "Uh…"

"Here you go, sweetie." The other paramedic pulled out a medical gown and handed it to Chloe. "It'll still be a bit chilly but you can phone for some clothes at the hospital."

The paramedic injecting Beca with morphine was looking anywhere but directly at Chloe, his face still flushed. Beca rolled her eyes with what remaining strength she had and let the drug take her senses.

* * *

Later, at the hospital, Beca was listening—or rather, _not_ listening—to a doctor tell her what to avoid for the next few days.

" _Miss Mitchell_ , are you listening to a word I am saying?"

"Hm?" Beca looked up playfully. "Double the exercise and lift heavy weights. Gotcha."

The doctor heaved a sigh and turned to Chloe for help. "I'll keep her in line," the redheads assured, and with that assurance the doctor excused herself from the emergency room.

"You're gonna keep me in line?" smirked Beca, once they had their privacy.

"Oh, yeah." Chloe sidled up to her on the hospital bed. "I'm going to be _on_ you all the time."

"I'd really like that," murmured Beca, leaning closer and kissing Chloe. Then she kissed her again. "Can we stay here just a bit longer—?"

As if on cue, a nurse came in to assist Beca in signing her release papers. And before Beca could say "alone time," Aubrey and Jesse came bursting through the doors. Through the swinging doors, Beca could see one of Barden's new taxpayer-funded SUVs haphazardly parked in the hospital's driveway.

"Jesus, Beca, are you okay?" Jesse asked worriedly.

"Here, Chloe, I got you a shirt." Aubrey fussed over ripping the tag off the garment. "Sorry, I grabbed the first one I could find at the airport—"

"It's fine!" Chloe said, changing into the 'I Heart ATL' shirt. When her head popped out, her expression was solemn. "Bree, I'm so sorry for what happened. I should've listened to Beca—"

"It's not your fault," Aubrey and Beca said in unison.

Before they could exchange any more pleasantries, the hospital staff reprimanded Jesse for parking in the emergency zone and ushered them all out. It was then that Beca first noticed the fifth person present, sitting in the backseat of the car: a curly-haired, goofy-looking guy in a Star Wars shirt.

"Hey, you must be the new guy," greeted Beca. "I'd shake your hand but—oh, wait, I'll use my left hand. Hi, I'm Beca."

"Benjamin Applebaum, but Benji is fine," he said with a kind smile as he shook Beca's hand gently and helped her get into the van. "Actually, do you mind if I…" He gestured at Beca's bandaged arm and waited for her confused nod because putting his fingers on it gently. "Jesse said you were shot, but can you tell me more about the injury?"

"Beca was shot a third of the way from her shoulder to her elbow, grazing the deltoid tuber-something," Chloe answered from the rearmost seat. "Hi, I'm Chloe."

"Thanks, Chloe. You're lucky it's just a graze," said Benji.

"What are you going to do?" Chloe asked curiously.

"Benji has—well, I'll let him show you," said Jesse, looking up at them through the rearview mirror. "Are you sure you can do it, buddy?"

"I'm sure I won't make it worse," Benji reassured them. He placed his fingers at the spot Chloe described and took a deep breath.

Beca felt a tingling sensation in her arm, followed by a weird feeling of something sucking on her flesh and pinching it to a point just shy of being painful. It lasted for only a few seconds before Benji retracted his hand and said, "I'd check with a doctor to be sure but I think it worked. I can't do anything about the damage to your bone but you should be feeling loads better."

Beca moved her arm and noticed that the dull, aching pain was gone. She unwrapped the bandages and was surprised to find smooth, unadulterated flesh where a bullet had just been minutes ago.

"This is the first time I'll be saying this honestly—but I am _really_ glad to meet you, Benjamin Applebaum!"

* * *

 **Response to reviews:**

 **Another Random Human** (Jan. 19) - Thanks! Yeah, Luke and Stacie have adopted the 'outlaw' way of life, apparently. :)

 **xcombixgirlx** (Jan. 19) - Haha, I wonder what gave you that feeling. Ohh, let's wait and see then.

 **pineappletini** (Jan. 20) - Was this long enough? It had around 9k+ words, I think. I worry about putting too much plot into one chapter, but let me know what you think of this one! :)

 **Maggie** (Jan. 20 and 21) - Thank you! I appreciate you taking the time to think about, and attempt to connect this story to, Kingdom Hearts.

Okay, so I wrote a whole paragraph explaining it and then just deleted it because I think this will be a simpler answer: I didn't pick out characters from KH and match them to PP when I started writing. The odds of a person being a part of both the PP and KH fandoms are a bit of a stretch so I focused instead on the themes.

But yes, Nobody Chloe in Season One started off as Naminé but only because she was a Nobody with emotions. Beca is Sora insofar as she (a) wields the Keyblade, and (b) had a heart so generous that a broken one latched onto it for support (this is Ventus' story, no need to dig in that deep into KH haha). I wouldn't say Chloe _became_ Kairi after Season One because PP Chloe is her own character and she is great. (Plus, I dislike Kairi.) There is no Riku character either, but Luke's susceptibility to the darkness in Ch. 12: Insidious was based on Riku's. The Professor is getting a big Ansem vibe in this season though.

I love your enthusiasm, so don't worry about asking questions haha. Bottomline is, you don't need KH to understand the story, and making parallels might just make it more confusing haha. :) I hope I satisfied your curiosity enough, but if you'd like the long-ass explanation, feel free to PM me 'cause I don't know how to PM a guest haha.

 **Psychic Guest** (Jan. 20) - Well, if Amy's comment didn't then I hope Flo's whole situation did! I slipped in a little Staubrey tension in there and yes, I know the "inevitable confrontation" was anticlimactic because that was intended haha. Oh, the tissue paper was just the message from Stacie. You can clear your suspicions of that solitary tissue paper haha. I'm sure they all dread the day they have to fight their friends. From the beginning I wanted to make sure that the story wasn't _all_ about mutants and I had the two perfect characters at my disposal! I love Christopher Mintz-Plasse and I couldn't put Tommy in without Justin so... Haha Bumper and Alice aren't all that bad–bitchy, sure, but I'd cut them some slack haha. I'm glad there are still some things I can surprise people with! Yes, Charlene is a mutant and all will be revealed soon. If that's how you feel about John then you totally understand how the students feel about him, too, haha. This chapter was twice as long, what do you think?

 **xXFreakyUnicorn7689Xx** (Jan. 27) - Haha I don't usually say a lot unless people ask me to explain some things or make a comment about a specific scene. Decision about what, sorry? Staying or leaving? I don't think she has a choice anymore haha. Thanks for reading!

* * *

 **A/N:** As I said in my other story, life got in the way and delayed a lot of writing. If you'd like that to happen much less in the future, kindly humor me and pray, perform a ritual, or send signals to the universe (whatever floats your boat) that I get good news from that thing that got in the way, 'cause once I do I can get past all this nervous energy and get on with Season Three.

As always, thank you so much for reading. Have a great middle of the week, everyone.


	22. No Paint, No Gain

**Introductory A/N:** Okay, I might need to explain myself a bit for this chapter. I said that there would be no filler chapters but this one qualifies as a filler in my book. There's still some plot stuff, but I wanted to have the characters do something fun and action-packed since this season so far has been pretty grim and political.

This chapter is based on the Modern Warfare episode of Community (a.k.a. the first paintball episode) and it requires a suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader. (More than you have already done, considering the genre of this story...)

 **Note on formatting:** FanFiction doesn't allow flexible formatting, but certain sections (you'll know which) were meant to be read in Courier font.

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Two: No Paint, No Gain**

Beca was nudged out of her restful sleep by a light tapping on her door. Recognizing the distinct pattern, she immediately rose to answer it. Glancing toward the other side of the room quickly, she let out a sigh when she saw that Kimmy Jin's bed was empty and already neatly made. She could _not_ deal with flak from her irritable roommate after the stressful week of—not even schoolwork but a stressful week of trainer-training from none other than the drill sergeant, Aubrey Posen.

Running a hand through her bedhead, Beca clambered out of her sheets to open the door. A smile instantly replaced her scowl at seeing her girlfriend on the other side, carrying a tray of breakfast food and a small, thin vase holding a single daisy freshly plucked from the garden. "Good morning!" chirped Chloe, letting herself in. "We've both been so busy lately so I thought I'd bring you breakfast in bed instead of going downstairs to the dining hall."

Beca took one more glance behind her for good measure. "What would you have done if Kimmy Jin were here?" she asked, gratefully taking the tray from Chloe and placing it on her desk.

"I knew she wasn't," said Chloe, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I saw her sign up for the campus orchestra last week. They practice every Saturday morning."

"Someone fancies herself a detective," smirked Beca, taking a bite out of the toast. "C'mere." She reached out and pulled Chloe closer so she could plant a good morning kiss on the redhead's lips.

"Mm—crumby!" Chloe pulled back and giggled. She ran a thumb around the corners of Beca's mouth to brush away the toasted crumbs, though her eyes remained fixated on Beca's lips as she continued her caress. Chloe drew a quick breath, as though she had momentarily forgotten to breathe.

 _Uh-oh._ Beca knew that look very well. She practically _invented_ that look.

Contrary to her initial fears over starting one, Beca's first functional relationship was going as smoothly as she could (never) have imagined. Most of the credit went to Chloe, of course, who was both the best friend Beca never knew she needed and the person she legitimately thought she could spend her entire life not getting bored with. Chloe just made it so _easy_.

There was only one bump in their otherwise smooth journey—only one, but it was massive.

 _Sex._

Ever since semi-publicly announcing that they had never actually done it during their "first" relationship, Chloe had become uncharacteristically reserved when it came to that topic; in fact, that topic was never brought up again. They both knew getting intimate on _that_ level was on the horizon, but neither had the guts to speak to the other about it. On Beca's part, she didn't want to risk making Chloe do something she wasn't ready for (even more after finding out that she had never done it), while Chloe on the other hand was struggling with self-confidence—a rare but justified emotion, since it wasn't exactly a mystery that Beca _was_ experienced in that area.

So things were left to continually simmer until it reached certain boiling points similar to the one they were having that morning: Staring longingly into each other's eyes (or lips, whichever was the trigger) and breathing in the suddenly heated air between them.

Beca began counting to five in her head, something she had learned to do at times like this, because there always seemed to be a reason—a divine intervention, maybe—why they never just gave into the desire. She thought that if she reached five seconds and nothing would—

In spectacular timing, the door burst open loudly. Beca, expecting to see Kimmy Jin, turned and put on the most ferocious glare she could muster. Only it wasn't Kimmy Jin. Nobody was there.

They heard a bang as another door was opened, which was when Beca and Chloe noticed that Beca's bedroom door had bent at the corners near the hinges from the force of the push, and splinters of wood littered the carpeted floor. A frustrated cry from down the hallway told them Fat Amy had been victimized as well. Seconds later, the Australian appeared at Beca's doorway clutching her head and looking murderous.

"It's those damn brats," she huffed, likely referring to the juvenile high school students they shared their dorm with. Another bang and yell—Fat Amy groaned. "They're splitting open doors _and_ my head! The dickwads must've found out we're hungover from the party last night and they're taking their revenge for us not inviting them."

"Party?" asked Beca, confused.

"Oh, since we knew Aubrey was going to be in the control room with you studying the book all night, we… sort of had an impromptu party," explained Chloe, looking slightly apologetic. "We couldn't pass up the opportunity for a clear shot."

"Like those shots you downed last night," added Fat Amy, regaining some of her humor despite her throbbing head. "I'm surprised _you're_ not hungover, Red. With all the jiggle juice in your system I bet you would've hopped on the Beca train and rode her 'til dawn."

And with that crass remark, Fat Amy took her leave and trudged back toward her and Chloe's bedroom, which was once again decorated with a gaping hole in the wall. Beca's eyes rolled heavenward at news of yet another missed opportunity before glancing back at Chloe, who had kept her apologetic expression. "How about we finish breakfast and head downstairs?" she suggested. "Aubrey mentioned an announcement."

"'Kay," Beca said half-heartedly, thinking that she had an 'announcement' to give Aubrey as well, in exchange for keeping her busy all night instead of partying with her inhibitions-diminished girlfriend.

* * *

Downloading file... [100%]

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/*

WARNING: The following record is the exclusive property of The Barden Institute for Superhuman Learning. Unauthorized use of and access to this file is punishable by law.

*/

Student Profile

Rebecca Mitchell

Barden ID # 014

Mutant ID # 03-CAT2-KEN

 _Personal Information_

Please enter security key:

Error: Incorrect security key. Retry?

n

Powers and Abilities:

"Aerokinesis – the power to manipulate air."

See MORE?

n

See TECHNIQUES?

n

See LIMITATIONS?

n

See PROGRESS REPORT?

y

Progress Report

Prepared by: J. Swanson

Last training date: 17-07-2011

Training history

\- Speed training (1/week) (discontinued)

\- Focus training (3/week) (discontinued)

Notes from recent training:

11:02:36AM

"Beca insists she's mastered aerokinesis. Begin speed and endurance training."

11:05:11AM

"Beca reached record flight speed (89mph) just to prove me wrong."

11:21:47AM

"Beca gave me the finger only twice today. I call that progress."

11:22:01AM

"Beca wants to stop training. Maybe make her a trainer instead?"

\- END OF REPORT –

See OLDER REPORTS?

n

\- END OF PROGRESS REPORT -

* * *

"A _paintball game_? Are you serious?"

"Yes, Beca, I am," answered Aubrey. "It's a great way for all of us to get an overall, comprehensive workout of our powers and our physical skills, as well as to promote camaraderie among us as students. Clearly, we all need to get along better," she added with a pointed look toward a smug-looking, blond 12th grader, obviously the culprit of the door-breaking incident.

"How does shooting balls of paint at each other make us get along?" Beca asked skeptically, her arms crossed and eyebrows raised.

"It just will, okay?" snapped Aubrey.

"Yeah, well, I'll have to take your word for it," said Beca, raising her hands in surrender. "'Cause I'm not playing."

Seeing that the vein in his girlfriend's temple was ready to pop, Jesse intervened, saying, "We really insist that everyone participate, Becs. Even trainers."

"But I really can't though," she insisted. "I promised my mom I'd visit her today. I'm actually leaving soon."

Aubrey looked displeased but gave small nod of approval.

"You're meeting your mom today?" Chloe asked, pulling Beca aside for privacy while Aubrey continued to explain the rules to the rest of the students.

"Uh, yeah. Sorry I didn't tell you," apologized Beca. "It was kind of last minute."

"Okay."

Beca saw the flash of disappointment in Chloe's eyes and immediately explained. "No, no, no! It's not that I don't want you to meet her! I just prefer that you do under different circumstances."

Chloe tilted her head in confusion.

"She found out that I didn't tell her about getting shot last week," Beca said grimly. "I'm about to get the biggest scolding of my adult life and I really don't want my girlfriend to be a witness to that."

Chloe relaxed into a smile. "Maybe you should tell her how heroic it was that you jumped in front of a bullet to save your girlfriend," she said. "Even though, you know, the first 'shot' was actually just a car backfire."

"Shh!" Beca looked around frantically. "Nobody knows that!"

"Anyone who has read the police report knows that."

"Yeah, well, until someone under this roof does, the official party line is that it _was_ a bullet— _not_ a car backfire—that scared me shitless, okay?"

"Okay, my brave, bulletproof hero," cooed Chloe, causing Beca to smile and feel all tingly inside despite Chloe's patronizing tone. "Now go on. Say hi to your mom for me. I'll see you when you get back."

Beca kissed her goodbye and paused to ask before leaving, "Are you actually going to play this dumb game?"

Chloe shrugged. "I'll probably just shoot myself and go read a book or something."

* * *

Beca arrived at the hospital earlier than expected (because she left the institute earlier than she needed to, not wanting any part of Aubrey's dumb game), so she had to sit in the waiting room until her mother's lunch break. She was squinting down at a Highlights magazine, in the middle of trying to find all the Hidden Pictures, when her arm was suddenly yanked up and inspected roughly.

"Hello to you, too, Mother," Beca said amusedly. "It's the other arm, by the way."

Her mother dropped the arm and glared at Beca. "Not funny," she said. "I told you to tell me when you're going to do something dangerous—"

"How was I supposed to know going out for ice cream was going to involve dodging bullets?" protested Beca. "Besides, it's all right now, see?" She waved her arm around wildly. "I was in a sling for barely two minutes. There's this new guy at Barden who can heal wounds and stuff. It's pretty awesome."

Beca's mother pursed her lips for a moment before relaxing her posture. "We could use someone like him in the hospital," she said.

"No shit," scoffed Beca. "If that right there is the way you handle your patients, I'm surprised they haven't shut this hospital down already."

"Okay, that's enough cheek from you," her mother warned, and then leaned in for a tight hug. "Seriously, though, how are you? How's college treating you?"

"Pretty well," Beca began brightly "… because I haven't actually been going to class that much…"

"Beca!"

"My classes are all spaced out and I waste time to flying back and forth 'cause of all the paperwork I have to do now that I'm a trainer," she complained. "Besides, there's just a lot more to _do_ at the mansion than at school—"

"Like Chloe?" Beca's mother grinned widely and high-fived herself, clearly pleased with her turn of phrase.

It was Beca's turn to purse her lips. Why was everyone obsessed with her sex life lately? "Gross, Mom," she said, rolling her eyes. "Can we not have another sex talk right now? I still remember the one you gave during my 9th birthday party."

"In all seriousness though, honey, your education is important." Beca's mother hesitated before adding, "I know you're upset about the whole DJ thing but it wouldn't hurt to start planning a back-up."

Beca held up her hand to stop her mother's campaigning for her future. "I know. And you'll be happy to learn that, thanks to a new development, I might be hanging around school more often. _Maybe_ even go to class."

Beca's mother raised an eyebrow but ignored the last comment. "What new development?"

"I got a job."

" _You_ got _a job_? Doing what?"

"You don't have to make it sound like I have no employable skills," grumbled Beca. After a pause, she answered, "DJ-ing, actually."

"Oh? When did this happen?"

"Last week…"

* * *

" _Congrats on poaching a new mutant," Aubrey said coldly as they exited the second-floor apartment to let mother and daughter exchange their goodbyes in privacy._

" _It was her decision, Aubrey," Stacie snapped back. "I don't get why you're so pissed at us. Oh, wait. You're_ always _pissed!"_

 _Stacie didn't know why she was saying these things, why she was provoking Aubrey when she was the one who left in the first place. Maybe she just wanted Aubrey's attention solely on her. Maybe Stacie wanted to see if Aubrey still felt the same way. After all, Aubrey angrily yelling at her was infinitely better than Aubrey ignoring her; at least it meant she cared._

" _I'm always pissed because you_ never _seem to care about the consequences of your actions!"_

 _Jesse exchanged looks with the other three and shook his head as Aubrey and Stacie continued bickering their way down the stairs._ " _At least I don't have to worry about you two fighting," he said with a small smile directed at Beca and Luke._

 _While Jesse introduced himself to Lilly and consequently struggled to maintain a conversation with the inaudible Asian, Beca and Luke deliberately lagged behind._

" _Is he right?" asked Luke. "Do you really have nothing to yell at me about?"_

 _Beca hesitated for a moment, leaning against the banister and carefully avoiding Luke's eyes. An entire summer had passed since she last saw Luke and Stacie and, admittedly, the pain of missing them had subsided a bit. But the sting from their clandestine departure hadn't._ " _I'm angry with you," she finally admitted._

 _Luke nodded understandingly. "I didn't mean to leave the way I did. But I knew that if I told you, you'd want to go."_

" _So?" Beca said forcefully. "Did you think it was better for me to stay? Didn't you trust me?"_

" _It wasn't about what was best for us, it was about what's best for you! You were utterly_ miserable _over Chloe coming back and the whole thing about not being with her," he pointed out. "Leaving would have only made it worse."_

 _Beca scuffed her shoe against the concrete step._

" _I heard you two are back together," continued Luke. "The same day we left, right?"_

 _Beca gave in a looked up. She didn't want to give Luke the satisfaction of being right, so confirmed it with a look._

" _Congratulations," smiled Luke._

 _Neither spoke for a while. They listened to the vague, indistinct sounds of Aubrey and Stacie arguing and Jesse trying to guess what Lilly was saying._

" _A kid named Marcus will be sent to Afghanistan for a briefing next week," Beca said suddenly. "He's fifteen years old. He seems so excited about it, the idiot."_

 _There was another lengthy pause after Luke nodded in acknowledgement. He already knew about this and was just glad to know that there was still someone at Barden against the conscription of minors. Even mutant ones._

" _Are we doing the right thing?" Beca asked solemnly. Despite her friends' assurances, she wanted to hear it from someone on the other side. "Over at Barden… are we keeping these kids safe or are we actually pushing them closer to danger?"_

 _Luke crossed and uncrossed his arms thoughtfully. "You are doing the right thing," he said decisively. "Things just aren't as black and white as either of us would like them to be. Even I sometimes wonder whether the people coming to us are better off with you guys."_

 _Beca stood up straighter, encouraged by the mention of Luke's group of unregistered mutants. "Can I ask you something? What's your end goal here, Luke? Do you really think you can repeal the MRA?"_

 _Luke seemed unfazed by the question. "Something like that. It's a stretch but we have to be here for the mutants who can't register for their own reasons—like Flo," he added, nodding toward the apartment they had just left._

" _And Bumper?" Beca asked disbelievingly. "That guy would be living it up in the mansion if he knew how much money they're shelling out to keep us happy."_

" _Some unregistered mutants just have something to prove."_

 _Beca was about to ask if they were involved in any way with the so-called mutant uprisings, but Luke beat her to it._ " _Life outside Barden is much harder for mutants than ever, Beca. The public is on the edge." He shook his head. "I can't see a future where mutants and humans coexist a hundred percent peacefully. Just take a look at what happened in Texas."_

" _So you guys have nothing to do with those uprisings?"_

 _Luke, for once, looked offended. "Of course not."_

 _Beca recoiled. Of course they didn't. She should have known better. "_ _Well, then… where do we go from here?" she said dejectedly. "If we're doomed to keep fighting each other, how am I supposed to go back to Barden and—and continue being their stupid little lab rat? What's the point of training mutants if it's only going to make them hate us more?"_

" _Because it's the right thing to do," Luke said simply. "Because teaching mutants to control their powers so they could function normally in society is the least we could do. Both for us and for the non-mutants."_

 _Beca sighed. "See,_ this _is why I should be on your side. You guys are doing more for mutantkind than we are at Barden."_

" _Careful, Becs, you're developing a hero complex," chuckled Luke. "Just because we're fighting a tougher battle doesn't mean it is any more meaningful than yours."_

" _But I'm not even fighting anything! We're letting them pamper us with food and cars in exchange for our blood and DNA so they could come up with a way to stop us. Maybe even eventually wipe us out. How much more feckless could our lives be?"_

" _It's not going to end that way," Luke assured her firmly. "Just find something to keep you going in the meantime. You have Chloe, your music—"_

" _Actually, I haven't touched my mixing stuff since the MRA," confessed Beca._

" _What? Why not?"_

" _Come on, Luke, my dreams of being a DJ in LA are drastically unlikely to happen now that I'm a registered mutant. I thought about releasing them anonymously but… the whole thing just kinda made me lose motivation, you know?"_

" _Don't let that stop you," said Luke. "Your talent is one thing they_ can't _control. If I were you I'd use their tainted money to buy all the mixing equipment I wanted. That'll show them, eh?"_

 _Beca chuckled in spite of herself. "Aubrey would flip out… So, yes, I'm definitely doing that as soon as I get home," she joked._

" _Hey," Luke perked up, suddenly getting an idea. "I just remembered—I used to manage the WBUJ campus radio station back at the university. I was pretty good at it, I'm sure if you cite me as a reference they'd give you the job. I even came up with the tagline, 'Music for the independent mind.' Pretty awesome, yeah?"_

 _Beca was taken aback by the tone and direction their conversation had taken. It was almost as though things were back to normal; like Luke and Stacie could just walk back into the mansion and start talking (or complaining) about school and training. She didn't realize how much she really missed them, how much she wished they didn't have to carry the burden of protecting the unregistered mutants, until now._

" _Jesse! Beca!"_

 _They took Aubrey's shrill voice from outside the courtyard as a sign that their conversation was over._ _When Beca and Luke reached the ground floor they saw that nothing much had changed between Aubrey and Stacie; they both still shot daggers from their eyes at each other. Jesse looked like he was ready to give Aubrey a backrub to release all the stress, and Lilly was observing them all with quiet amusement._

" _Let's go," said Aubrey. "We don't have a reason to stay here anymore."_

 _Beca saw Stacie roll her eyes dramatically and assumed that nothing had indeed changed. She waved goodbye awkwardly at Luke, Stacie, and Lilly and followed Aubrey back to the jet._

* * *

A while after meeting her mother and assuring her many times over that she was healthier than she had ever been in her life, Beca returned to a deceptively quiet mansion. As she passed Barden's front gate (covered in ripped up anti-mutant posters) and rode her skateboard up the stone driveway, she noted the lack of students playing Ultimate Frisbee in the yard, the customary weekend activity. She pushed the front door open and her eyes widened in surprise.

The chandelier lay broken in pieces at the center of the foyer, whose walls were splattered with so much paint that the entire hall could pass as a Jackson Pollock exhibit. Chunks of the staircase baluster were missing and the mansion in general had a dilapidated air to it—a state drastically different from how it had been just a few short hours ago.

"Jeez, I guess things got out hand," Beca muttered to herself. She decided to head to the kitchen for a drink to quench the thirst that developed from a warm afternoon travel. But just as she was about to pass through the wide archway that led to the kitchen, a chubby hand covered her face and she was pulled back.

" _Mrmf!_ "

"Shh!" Fat Amy hushed, keeping her large hand firmly over half of Beca's face while rubbing Beca's neck with the other. "Calm down… That's it, relax—"

Beca finally pushed Fat Amy off. "That's how you get a dog to swallow pills, not calm a human being!" she sputtered, wiping her mouth of the sugary residue that came from the blonde's hand. "What the hell, Amy?"

"What the hell, me? What the hell, _you!_ " Fat Amy hissed. "Are you nuts? You can't just go into the kitchen all oblivious like you're walking in on your parents having sex. There are four brats in there!"

Beca made a face to express her utter bewilderment. " _What?_ "

"Brats—high school kids!"

" _So?_ " Beca could not have said that word with more vitriol.

Fat Amy gasped. "You don't know…"

"Know _what_?"

"Aubrey changed the rules," said Fat Amy, glancing around the corner while holding up a bright pink paintball gun close to her chest. "Instead of teams it's now a last man standing competition. The winner gets the only free single bedroom left in the mansion."

Beca did a double take. "Wait, what?"

"You heard me," Fat Amy said seriously. "Single bedroom, en-suite bath. Northeast corner placement. Garden view. It's as endangered as a decent Mexican fast-food chain that doesn't give you explosive diarrhea."

Beca gulped in disbelief. "H-how? I thought there were no more rooms available?"

"It was one those rooms they were supposed to turn into a double," explained Fat Amy, releasing her magazine to count her remaining paintballs. "They couldn't get the headboard to detach from the wall without ruining all the other plans so they decided to keep it there."

Beca moaned in longing at the thought of how large the bed must be if it had its headboard attached to the wall. And the northeast corner? That was the room farthest from all the others. She was suddenly filled with an intense desire to win this dumb paintball game… for Chloe-related reasons, of course.

"But wait, I don't see how the entire mansion could get so worked up over it," said Beca. "I mean, have you _seen_ the foyer? All that just for a single room?"

Fat Amy brushed hair off her face with the back of her hand. "It's not just that, BM. When the original idea for teams was scrapped, instead of killing each other off the game devolved into a symbolic all-out war between us and those brats."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, let's just say tensions got to an all time high," shrugged Fat Amy. "At first I was just in it for the room but now I want to slap the smirks off those merciless little buggers' faces—did you know they ambushed Chloe three-to-one?"

"Whoa. That sucks," murmured Beca, though internally she was screaming at the injustice because now her chances of enjoying the benefits of a private, single room had lessened.

"No, Chloe totally kicked ass!" Fat Amy said excitedly. "She took out all three of them on her own. Your boo's got mad skills."

Beca grinned proudly and she felt a little flicker of hope at the thought of Chloe being just as determined to win. "All right, I'm in," she said. "That is, if I can still be in?"

Fat Amy hummed thoughtfully. "Well, leaving Barden once the game starts automatically disqualifies you. But according to Aubrey's rules, each player starts the game with a pistol, a single magazine of ten paintballs, a starting point, and a handicap—you have to stay in your place for a few minutes depending on how good your powers are, to give others a chance for a head start, you know."

Beca nodded. "So since I haven't picked up my gun… I'm _not_ disqualified yet, right?"

Fat Amy grinned. "Sounds reasonable to me. Here." She pulled out a spare gun from her back pocket—at least, Beca _hoped_ it was from her back pocket. "I picked this off a fallen ally. Jessica," she added to answer Beca's questioning look. "I'll split my paintballs with you. I've only got eight left so we take four each—one for each of the bastards in there. Word on the street is they're stockpiling paintballs, so if we clear the area, we can take the load back to headquarters."

"Headquarters?"

"The library."

Beca accepted the paintballs but not the gun, claiming her aim would be better using her aerokinesis. "I'm allowed to use my powers, right?"

Fat Amy nodded. "But not in a way that modifies the paintballs or makes you permanently invincible." She reloaded her gun and began explaining the rules. "A player is eliminated when hit directly in the head or torso. If you hit them on the arms or legs they still have one go, but the next shot will definitely kill them."

"Got it. Uh, what happens when you… die?"

"Just head to the simulation room for some snacks and drinks," Fat Amy answered anticlimactically.

Beca resisted rolling her eyes.

"So what's the plan, captain?" Fat Amy asked, cocking her gun.

* * *

Student Profile

Amy ?

Barden ID # 018

Mutant ID # 05-CAT1-WIL

 _Personal Information_

Please enter security key:

227336

Full name: N/A

Date of Birth: N/A

Civil status: N/A

Father's name: N/A

Mother's name: N/A

Other family: N/A

Powers and Abilities:

"Fat Manipulation – can enlarge body mass."

See MORE?

n

See TECHNIQUES?

y

Techniques:

"Techniques are self-explanatory. – A.P."

See LIMITATIONS?

y

Limitations:

(1) Decreased speed

See PROGRESS REPORT?

y

Progress Report

Prepared by: A. Posen

Last training date: 07-09-2011

Training history:

\- Strength training (3/week)

\- Endurance training (3/week) (cardio)

\- Focus training (1/week)

\- Speed training (3/week)

Notes from recent training:

01:02:44PM

"Subject is finally responding well to new regimen, i.e., finally not insisting that 'vertical running' is a viable form of exercise."

01:13:21PM

"Subject successfully finished 10 minutes on the treadmill, 2+ from last. HR: 152bpm."

1:24:30PM

"Subject appears to favor backside when engaging in combat. When asked, subject responded it was for 'aesthetic pleasure'."

1:49:11PM

"Over-all a satisfactory training. Continue increasing speed goal."

\- END OF REPORT –

See OLDER REPORTS?

n

\- END OF PROGRESS REPORT -

* * *

Beca looked Fat Amy up and down and realized why the Australian hadn't gone ahead with the attack before she arrived; Amy was too large and slow a target to get through the kitchen unscathed. She pressed her cheek against the wall to get a better view of the spacious kitchen and whispered back to the blonde, "Could you create a diversion for me?"

"I can create a small earthquake," offered Fat Amy.

Beca nodded. "That'll do." She lifted off the ground the second Fat Amy's bottom reached it, and flew straight into the kitchen. She had a millisecond to gather her surroundings before she took cover in the small alcove where the paint-splattered breakfast table was lying overturned.

"That sounded near," one of the voices said worriedly.

"Do you think it was Fat Amy's or Jesse's?" another voice asked.

Beca estimated that the voices were coming from behind the kitchen island. She peeked her head out slowly and, as she expected, a mousy-haired boy was poking his head above the counter. It was an easy headshot; Beca flicked one of the paintballs with her thumb and a second later the boy had blue paint dripping over his eyes.

"Argh!"

"Wh-who was it?" the worried voice said.

"Dude, I told you not to go up!"

"I—I couldn't tell! It was too fast!"

Beca could practically hear the other three tightening their grips on their pistols. "Come out, come out wherever you are!" she taunted.

"Shit! It's Beca Mitchell!"

"I thought she wasn't playing?"

"Dude, _shut up_!"

Beca couldn't suppress her proud smirk. "My reputation precedes me," she called out. "I'll give you one chance to surrender peacefully. Otherwise, things get _real_ messy for you."

"You won't be so tough when I wipe the paint off the floor with your ass!" the braver brat yelled back. He mumbled something to his teammates that Beca couldn't hear.

"N'yaahh—!" A clumsy figure suddenly emerged from behind the counter and flew through the air haphazardly. Beca saw paintballs shooting from it randomly but she easily rolled away, back to cover.

She recognized the figure as the high school freshman with flight powers that Jesse had once asked her to help train. Her evaluation of the kid was that she lacked the confidence to fly straight—and Beca was proven right as the girl continued her random flight pattern until finally hitting her head on the ceiling. Beca shot her in the torso this time and she fell to the ground with a groan.

When the excitement died down, Beca heard the sound of the last two arguing.

"Just do it!" the arrogant voice commanded.

"It's not going to work against her!" the other insisted, but he apparently lost the argument because Beca began to feel the air in the room move.

"Ah, the vortex kid." Beca shook her head. "You really wanna do this? With _me_?" Though the air vortex was strong enough to suck in a variety of objects in the kitchen, it was pathetically feeble against Beca, who was by far the most powerful aerokinetic in Barden. "Let me show you how it's done, son."

She created an air vortex of her own to completely wreck his, and, as a cherry on top, she also sent a paintball straight through the middle of the spiral, which made a direct hit. She was so preoccupied with her enjoyment that she didn't notice the last remaining brat aiming his gun at her.

"Eat paint, Mitchell!"

His finger was only a hair's breadth from the trigger when the side of his face exploded in bright green paint.

"Boo-ya. Crushed it," said Fat Amy, blowing imaginary smoke from the end of her gun.

Beca gave her a thumbs up. "Good lookin' out, Ames." She approached the arrogant brat and (to her annoyance) looked up at his paint-splatted face. "You're the super strength kid, right?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said bitterly, wiping the paint out of his ear. "You know, it really pisses us off when you call us 'kids.' It's not like you're that much older than us, Mitchell."

"No, but clearly I am more experienced," said Beca, motioning around the room. "So where's the stockpile?"

"The what?"

"The stockpile. Where are you keeping all the paintballs?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Beca saw Fat Amy's ass sticking out of the walk-in pantry as she filled her arms with food. "Never mind."

* * *

Student Profile

Chloe Beale

Barden ID # 016

Mutant ID # 01-CAT3-SNO

 _Personal Information_

Please enter security key:

227336

Full name: Chloe Beale

Date of Birth: 22-07-1993

Civil Status: Single

Father's name: J. Beale (deceased)

Mother's name: K. Beale (deceased*)

Other family: Gail Abernathy-McKadden & Jack McKadden (adoptive parents), no siblings

* record unavailable or missing

Powers and Abilities:

"Telekinesis, Telepathy"

See MORE?

y

"Chloe has achieved full use of both powers in the past but has since forgotten them. Her telekinesis allows her to move and manipulate the physical qualities of objects with her mind. According to earlier records (c. 2001) her telepathy allows her to communicate mentally. No data exists on whether the communication is two-way. – J. Smith"

"While Chloe has yet to exhibit her superhuman powers, she remains extremely adept at physical combat. – A. Posen"

See TECHNIQUES?

y

Techniques:

"Chloe hasn't developed any yet. – J. Swanson"

See LIMITATIONS?

y

N/A

See PROGRESS REPORT?

y

Progress Report

Prepared by: J. Swanson

Last training date: 02-09-2011

Training history:

\- Focus training (3/week)

Notes from recent training:

03:31:44PM

"Chloe starts meditating."

03:35:39PM

"Brain activity reaches minimum. Record unbroken at 2m03s. Delay possibly due to conversation with trainer pre-meditation."

03:51:12PM

"Brief spike in prefrontal cortex activity. Relatively uncommon this deep into meditation. See graph report for more details."

04:19:01PM

"Heart rate increase. Sustained stimulation in prefrontal cortex."

04:19:15PM

"Suspected occurrence of telepathy."

04:33:02PM

"No incident since, but brain activity has been more erratic. Eraser hasn't moved an inch."

04:44:29PM

"Chloe asks to stop."

\- END OF REPORT -

See OLDER REPORTS?

y

See PROGRESS REPORT dated 31-08-2011?

y

Progress Report

Prepared by: J. Swanson

Date: 31-08-2011

10:31:01AM

"Chloe starts meditating."

10:34:00AM

"Chloe's brain activity settled."

11:45:38AM

"No progress. Chloe asks to stop."

\- END OF REPORT –

See PROGRESS REPORT dated 29-08-2011?

n -cusdat 08072012

Progress Report

Prepared by: A. Posen

Date: 08-07-2011

10:30:01AM

"Subject begins warm-up exercises."

10:40:02AM

"Heart rate normal. Subject attempts to move Object A (5g pebble, 2" diameter) using visual technique. See enchiridion for more on VT."

10:50:13AM

"Subject fails to move Object A, claims VT is faulty. Will begin again using subject's preferred technique."

11:02:16AM

"Subject insists on not being disturbed. Adjust schedule to allot 15 minutes for experimental techniques in future sessions."

11:05:01AM

"Subject initiates conversation. Due to lack of objective function, conversation is terminated by trainer."

11:05:32AM

"Subject requests change of trainer. Reassign to J. Swanson. Maybe throw in an attitude adjustment, too."

\- END OF REPORT –

\- END OF PROGRESS REPORT -

* * *

Chloe put one foot in front of the other slowly, being careful not to make any noise as she followed the four hundred-pound Siberian tiger in front of her. Kimmy Jin lifted her enormous feline head and sniffed the air, then she turned and seemed to motion to Chloe, " _They're in there."_

Chloe looked at Jesse behind her and nodded toward one of the classroom doors where Kimmy Jin had stopped. "What's the plan?" she asked him, as Kimmy Jin shifted back into human form to be a smaller target.

"I open the door to draw most of the fire toward me," said Jesse. "Chloe, you come in when it dies down. Kimmy Jin, you take the rear and be our lookout. Everyone clear?"

The two girls nodded.

"In three… two…"

Jesse kicked down the door and, immediately, showers of paintballs came raining through. Jesse took cover, occasionally popping out from behind the doorway to draw more fire as well as make shots of his own while a flattened plate of metal hovered around deflecting some bullets.

A moment of silence rang as the brats reloaded.

"Chloe, _go!_ "

* * *

From down the hall and around the corner, Beca's ears pricked at the sound of Chloe's name, followed by faint sounds of paintball guns firing. Without waiting for Fat Amy, she sprinted toward the action and arrived just in time to catch a glimpse of Chloe, Jesse, and Kimmy Jin engaged in battle against four brats inside none other than her old Physics classroom.

Chloe held a pistol in each hand and was halfway through a magnificently badass sideways dive while shooting at brats hidden behind a fort made out of desks. She hit one on the neck and transitioned smoothly into a somersault as she landed, crouched, at Beca's feet. "Oh, hey, baby," she greeted breathlessly before spinning around to sweep Beca's legs, causing the stunned brunette to fall to the ground and narrowly miss a handful of paintballs that would have eliminated her from the game.

Chloe wasted no time getting back to her feet and dashing toward the fort, expertly dodging aimless paintballs with gymnastic tumbles and leaps. From either side of the room, Jesse and Kimmy Jin took advantage of the brats' momentary distraction and managed to take one of them out.

Beca's jaw dropped as she watched Chloe take out the remaining two brats simultaneously, catching them all by surprise when she made a front flip right over their heads and shot them with each pistol. Chloe landed gracefully on both feet and rounded on one of them; she grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and, like Beca, demanded to know where the paintballs were.

"What did I tell ya?" said Fat Amy, who had been watching the spectacle behind Beca, eating chips she'd taken from the pantry. "She's good, huh?"

"She's so _hot_ ," breathed Beca, unable to shut her jaw. "Damn."

Fat Amy merely chuckled and nudged her forward with her elbow. As Beca approached her girlfriend, she caught the end of the interrogation.

"You won't… stop… our leader," panted the defeated brat. "He will… make you pay."

Beca raised an eyebrow. "Is it just me or is this guy taking the game _way_ too seriously?" she asked, addressing everyone in the room.

After the kid finished his dramatic "death" scene, the high schoolers trudged out of the classroom while the victors gathered plastic canisters filled with paintballs and made their way to the library.

On the way, Beca explained herself and they all agreed that it seemed reasonable that she could join. Kimmy Jin turned back into a tiger and began sniffing the safest way back, as some of the smarter brats had set up booby traps all over the mansion. Chloe walked side-by-side with Beca and caught her up to what went down since she left for the hospital.

"We started off as twelve college students against sixteen high school ones," Chloe was explaining. "We lost three in the battle to secure the library, and three more to traps they set in the residence hallways. We're down to us seven, including you, while the brats are down to the last four."

"Uh-huh," nodded Beca. She wasn't really paying attention to Chloe's words as much as she was trying not to melt from the heat emanating from her.

"After we bring back this ammo I think Aubrey will start planning the final attack—"

Chloe was interrupted by a low growl from Kimmy Jin. All five of them froze and those with guns raised them, ready to strike from any direction. Kimmy Jin lowered her head and sniffed the carpet, a clear frown on her furry forehead.

They heard a yelp from around the corner and approached cautiously. Their guns were soon aimed at a round-faced brunette leaning against the wall, her face twisted in pain. They looked down and saw that the floor connected with her legs just a few inches above the ankles. It looked like she was sinking to the floor.

* * *

Student Profile

Emily Junk

Barden ID # 025

Mutant ID # 12-CAT1-STE

 _Personal Information_

Please enter security key:

227336

Full name: Emily Junk-Hardon

Date of Birth: 11-12-1996

Civil Status: Single

Father's name: H. Hardon

Mother's name: K. Junk

Powers and Abilities:

"Phasing and intangibility"

See MORE?

y

"Subject can move through physical objects (phasing) by making her body or parts of her body completely intangible. Exact physiology is currently in research."

"Subject possesses an above-average learning curve. Estimated power growth rate 24% every three sessions."

See TECHNIQUES?

y

Techniques:

(1) Intangibility extension

(2) Air-walking (in dev't)

(3) Intra-matter manipulation (in dev't)

See LIMITATIONS?

y

(1) Object density

(2) Concentration

See PROGRESS REPORT?

y

Progress Report

Prepared by: A. Posen

Last training date: 09-09-2011

Training history:

\- Focus training (3/week)

\- Strength training (1/week)

\- Endurance training (2/week)

Notes from recent training:

05:00:30PM

"Subject begins warm-up for ET."

05:15:13PM

"Subject completes ET. Begins training for TQ#1."

5:45:26PM

"Subject displays mastery of TQ#1. Able to make objects of any size, density, material (common) intangible. Begins training for TQ#2."

6:05:13PM

"Subject unsuccessfully walks on air. At most, successful step for 2.9s. Adjust focus training – drop Smith method; try Baguazhang. Begins training for TQ#3."

6:25:04PM

"Subject injured during attempt to solidify hand while inside a 5kg medicine ball. IMPORTANT: Wait for results of research before proceeding with TQ#3."

6:30:11PM

"Over-all good session. Must determine method of intangibility before proceeding with more complex techniques."

\- END OF REPORT -

See OLDER REPORTS?

n

\- END OF PROGRESS REPORT -

* * *

"Emily?" said Jesse, lowering his gun. "Are you okay?"

"I heard you guys coming so I planned to escape, but I lost focus on the way down," the young girl replied sheepishly. "And it's—ow. It hurts too much to—"

"Oh, come here, sweetie." Chloe approached Emily and put her arm around her shoulder to support Emily's weight and relieve the pressure on her legs. "Jesse, do you think you could…?"

Jesse crouched down and placed his palm on the floor. "Good news; it's concrete. I'll get you out in a jiffy, Em." Jesse flexed his fingers and ground the concrete into tiny pieces, freeing up space to allow Emily's foot some leeway. "The carpet though—"

Kimmy Jin approached at once and started clawing at the floor near Emily's foot. Emily giggled as the fur on Kimmy Jin's giant paw tickled her when it came too close.

"Thank you so much," said Emily, once she was free. She was still leaning into Chloe for support since both her ankles were swollen. "I swear I wasn't planning on sneaking up on you guys. I didn't think anyone would want to hide out in the classrooms so I went here."

"Don't worry about it," said Jesse. "We'll take you back to the library. You can ride on Kimmy Jin's back—"

Kimmy Jin sniffed disapprovingly.

"—and Benji can fix you up. Just promise not to shoot us when you're all healed," Jesse added jokingly.

"I promise!"

* * *

Student Profile

Benjamin Applebaum

Barden ID # 031

Mutant ID # 16-CAT1-PLA

 _Personal Information_

Please enter security key:

Error: Incorrect security key. Retry?

n

Powers and Abilities:

"Healing (cell regeneration)"

See MORE?

y

"Benji can 'restore organic matter to their full, working state.' He cannot 'create new cells or change their inherent nature.' That's all according to him.

He also healed my arm. – B."

See TECHNIQUES?

n

See LIMITATIONS?

y

(1) Range: touch only

(2) Unknown limitation on types of injuries

See PROGRESS REPORT?

y

Progress Report

Prepared by: B. Mitchell

Last training date: 09-09-2011

Training history:

N/A

Notes from recent training:

01:28:22PM

"Oops. I didn't know I was supposed to write stuff. My bad. Just to be clear, this report was prepared by Jesse Swanson. NOT Beca Mitchell."

\- END OF REPORT -

\- END OF PROGRESS REPORT –

* * *

Aubrey was waiting for them at the center of the library, surrounded by strategically placed shelves, and looking down at a map of the grounds. Chloe and Fat Amy headed straight for her to deliver their respective reports and inform her of their latest teammates, while Beca stayed behind to check up on Benji, her first student since being 'promoted' to a trainer.

He was sitting on a leather chair, quietly reading a book in the corner of the library. A small whiteboard with the word "Infirmary" written on it was propped against a shelf beside him. He looked up eagerly when he saw them approaching, and Beca got the sense that there wasn't much need for a healer in this harmless paintball game.

"Hey, Benji," Jesse greeted as he and Benji helped Emily off Kimmy Jin and onto a table. "I don't think you've met Emily yet. Emily Junk, meet Benjamin Applebaum. And vice versa."

"Emily Junk." Benji jerked himself off the chair. He stood with his back poker straight and started to bend forward at the waist before realizing what he was doing. "I-I don't know why I bowed. Forgive me. Um, Emily. You have a charming name," he stuttered.

"So do you—Benjamin Applebaum." Emily bobbed her head amusedly as she said it once more. "It's kinda like Apple-bottom…" She suddenly broke into song, " _Shawty had them_ _Applebaum jeans, boots with the fur_ … _the whole club was lookin' at her._ "

Beca and Jesse exchanged amused looks. The giggle that escaped Emily's lips after her short performance triggered Beca to vaguely recognize Emily as the squealing girl who somehow always managed to be there whenever she was flirting with Chloe, which only reminded Beca of her current predicament. She glanced quickly over to where Chloe was leaning over the table beside Aubrey, her tank top every so slightly dipping down to expose the top of her chest...

"And a lovely voice, too," smiled Benji, his eyes sparkling with complete admiration. "I'd be honored to put my hands on your body."

"Wh-what?"

"To heal you," Jesse clarified quickly. "That's what he does. He's got the healing touch."

While Benji worked on taking care of Emily as respectfully as he could, Beca shook herself out of a trance and pulled Jesse aside to seek his advice.

"Well, those two hit it off really well," observed Jesse as they walked away from the infirmary. "It's kinda cute, don't you think?"

"Hm? Oh. Yeah," Beca nodded distractedly.

"Becs? What's up?"

"Um." Beca hesitated. "Okay, I'm just gonna spit it out to blow past the awkwardness." She paused again and shook her head. "Okay, here it goes. How did you and Aubrey first get around to… you know… the _sex_?"

Beca closed her eyes in embarrassment at how the word came out.

Jesse's mouth opened in a gleeful yelp. "Are you—is _the_ Beca Mitchell asking me for sex advice?" he squealed.

"Dude, lower your voice! We're in a library," glared Beca. "And also my girlfriend's on the other side of the room."

After Jesse got over his laughing fit and grew serious, Beca told him about her concern of making it a really special first time for Chloe. "But then if I plan it too much, doesn't that ruin the whole magical thing?" she said.

"Well, to be honest… it might not be as magical as you'd think anyway," said Jesse. "Even if it's with someone you have actual feelings for, the first time is bound to be awkward. It's an incredibly intimate thing so there's insecurity and all that."

"Was it awkward for you?"

Jesse thought about it. "A bit…?" he said uncertainly. "I mean, it would have _really_ been awkward if we hadn't been in the mood, but we were. It just sort of happened without either of us planning it. Maybe you should just relax and let things take its course."

"But I'm _bursting_ to do something, Jess," groaned Beca, "literally bursting. And I think she wants it, too."

"Why don't you talk to her about it?" Jesse asked with a frown, as though it were the most obvious solution in the world.

"I would, but any time my mind even goes _near_ sex, some cosmic force brings us further away!" complained Beca. "This is why I need to win this dumb competition. No offense to Kimmy Jin but roommates—and practically everyone on our floor—are the biggest cockblockers in the history of the world, dude. They do it without even trying. If I get my own room, it could be me and Chloe alone for a minimum of eight hours a day. Not only can I talk to her about sex, I'd probably be _doing_ it already."

Jesse chuckled at his best friend's pent up sexual frustration. "Your story has moved me," he said, grinning and holding up his pinky finger. "I promise that, if I win, I'll give you guys the room."

"Seriously?" Beca said, hooking her pinky without hesitation. "Wouldn't you and Aubrey…? Wait, how _do_ you guys manage anyway?"

Jesse's ears turned red. "Uh. We haven't exactly done it in a bedroom before—"

"Dude! _Gross!_ "

* * *

Beca approached the center of the room where Aubrey, Chloe, and Fat Amy were coming up with a strategy. Aubrey had estimated that all the remaining stashes of paintballs were now in possession by either teams. The final battle was at hand and she wanted it to begin and end on her terms. After ruling out all possible locations, she was reasonably certain that the last three brats were outdoors.

Chloe filled Beca in on who they were up against: one who could shoot spikes from his body and was therefore nearly impossible to hit, one with super speed, and another with camouflage. Fat Amy loaded up all their guns and spare magazines, and strapped row of paintballs around Beca's waist.

"The plan is simple, ladies," she said once they were gathered around the doors leading to the gardens. "We come in two rows. Front row—Chloe, Aubrey, Jesse, Emily—focus on ground cover and close-combat fighting. The rest of us back row people provide cover. If shit goes down," she cocked her gun impressively, "it's every woman for herself."

They exchanged glances with each other one last time before Chloe and Emily yanked the glass double doors open. The instant they stepped foot outside, a paintball came straight toward Emily, who instinctively activated her phasing power, causing the paintball to go through her and land just below Kimmy Jin's ribcage. More paintballs quickly followed and Fat Amy jumped out of the way, causing a small tremor as she landed.

The tremor was enough to knock the patrol off the tree where she had been hiding, as well as momentarily mess up her camouflaging. Beca flicked a paintball toward her but the speedster darted past and brought the camouflager to safety behind a large oak tree.

"Execute Plan B! Alpha team, spread out and surround!" called Aubrey. "Beta team, cover us!"

She, Beca, Chloe, and Jesse walked briskly toward the oak tree while the rest aimed their guns at the trees surrounding them, keeping an eye out for the third brat. Just before Beca could get a clear visual on the two brats behind the tree, they heard a yell from Fat Amy—

"I've been shot!" she yelled dramatically, clutching her chest which was covered in orange paint. "I've just been shot!"

Distracted by Fat Amy's outburst, the Alpha team was almost too late to react to the speedster and camouflaging brats taking aim. Beca grabbed Chloe by the waist and flew away while Jesse protected Aubrey and himself with a rock cave. Even Benji and Emily, who had kept _way_ back out of disinterest, came under fire.

When Benji saw the paintball coming at them, seemingly in slow motion, and heroically jumped in front of Emily. "Ow!" he winced when two paintballs hit him squarely in the chest.

"You know, you didn't have to do that," Emily reminded him with a laugh. "I could have just phased both of us through them."

Panting heavily, Benji nodded sheepishly. "Right…"

* * *

Meanwhile, Beca carried Chloe inside the nearby greenhouse to catch their breaths. They listened to the sounds of paintball guns firing and earth moving as the battle continued outside. They crouched low to the ground and hid themselves between the rows of tables.

"Do they have bigger guns or something? How do they reload so quickly?" Beca wondered aloud.

"The speedster is throwing them," said Chloe, closing her eyes and leaning against the leg of a table while she inhaled and exhaled deeply.

Beca turned around to ask if she was okay but got distracted by the sight of Chloe's chest heaving up and down. A thin layer of sweat on her lightly tanned skin made Chloe glow like a wonderful, delectable gift from the gods. Beca's mind was so deep in the gutter at this point that it had practically built a house there. She could just imagine the feel, the taste…

For Chloe, there was nothing sexier than being looked at with pure desire, and catching Beca almost literally drooling over her sent her over the edge. She suddenly didn't care anymore if she matched up to any of Beca's old conquests—what mattered was that she could do it again and again and again, for as long as it took to blow Beca's mind, because Beca was _hers,_ and only hers.

The inevitable crashing of their lips together and clumsy groping finally happened, but as they clawed and nipped at each other's skin they failed to notice how everything around them had fallen silent, and it was not just in their heads.

Beca moaned into the kiss and was painfully aware of all the places in her body that were throbbing with need. Her hand slid from the back of Chloe's neck down to the bottom of her shirt, so feeble and flimsy yet the bane of her desires, and was ready to rip it off in one tug when, true to form, a cosmic force intervened.

The door to the greenhouse burst open and it immediately rained paintballs inside. The speedster was running around the glass structure, throwing paintballs randomly to try and overwhelm them. Luckily, they had the cover of large-leafed plants and a table so Beca had enough time to channel all her frustration, irritation, and indignation over this stupid, blown-out-of-proportion game, and over her unlucky streak with Chloe, into one giant rage of wind, which she unleashed with a primal roar.

Although she had destroyed most of the plants inside the greenhouse, Beca also managed to send the speedster flying through the air and plastering against the wall like a bug. Beca had no mercy left in her and sent all of her remaining paintballs his way, making sure to hit him in the crotch every now and then.

After a long pause, Chloe stood up and dusted herself off. She looked around at the damage and said, "You're screwed once Charlene finds out what you did to the plants."

"Nah, Benji can take care of it," Beca gasped in between exhausted breaths, and she gave Chloe a small smile. "Looks like we won."

"Not quite."

Aubrey climbed in through a break in the greenhouse wall, dirt-stained but otherwise paint-free. And, without warning, she shot them both squarely in the chest. Beca and Chloe were too stunned by the unflinching betrayal to say anything.

"Sorry," said Aubrey, not looking sorry at all. "I've been given orders not to let either of you win."

Jesse came into view from behind her, paint dripping down the side of his head. "Sorry, guys," he apologized. "I couldn't stop her."

Enraged, Beca found her voice. "Aubrey, _what the fuck_? Orders from who?"

"Jack," Aubrey answered simply.

Beca groaned. The universe had way too many players on its side. "So this whole thing was pointless!"

"It wasn't entirely pointless," said Aubrey. "We showed those brats not to mess with us, but at the same time we learned not to underestimate them based on their age. We came out respecting each other a little bit more, didn't we? Although, I think the better story here is that, in the end, I will always come out on top," she added with a cocky grin.

"Actually…"

They all spun around and saw Emily clutching a pistol with both hands. There was a small bang, a splatter of paint and just like that, Aubrey was eliminated.

Emily seemed just as stunned at what she had done as the rest of them. "Oh, my gosh, I can't believe I did that!" she gushed, dropping the gun and covering her mouth.

* * *

They trudged back toward the mansion together in silence. The students, high school and college alike, that had been eliminated earlier in the game were probably having a blast in the simulation room, not feeling as worn out and exhausted as they did. But Charlene standing at the entrance with her arms crossed disapprovingly was likely a sign that their trials weren't over just yet.

"Charlene, I can explain—" began Aubrey but she was cut off.

"I'm not upset about whatever this mess is," Charlene said, waving around at the state of the mansion, "because I _know_ you all are going to clean it up. What I _am_ upset about is your progress reports."

Aubrey and Jesse exchanged confused looks.

"I've been reading them all day. You guys are moving too slowly!" criticized Charlene. "With the exception of Emily here, a lot of the new students' powers are vastly underdeveloped. And you," she rounded on Beca, who took an involuntary step back, "if you're so intent on discontinuing your own training, then you ought to do a better job training Benji, otherwise I'm forcing you back into training myself, young lady."

Charlene turned on her heel and left them in a confused daze. They weren't exactly sure what they did wrong, but at that moment they couldn't care less. Aubrey shook her head and suggested they all just take a shower and head to dinner. Fat Amy, who had hung around even after being eliminated, gave Beca a look and waggled her eyebrows, reminding Beca of a previous conversation they had about showers.

Beca looked over at Chloe who was finishing up a conversation with Jesse about arranging their next training session. Chloe looked her way and smiled softly, then she shrugged her shoulders exasperatedly as if to say, " _Oh, well_ ," and Beca knew that it just wasn't the time yet.

* * *

 **Response to reviews:**

 **Another Random Human** (Feb. 3) - I love the pun, too! I'm glad I was able to use it. Ohh, so I see you're in favor of Stacie pairing up with someone else? Interesting. Yeah, they are in a difficult situation. This chapter brings them away from all that for a while and just lets them have fun as mutants together. How did you like Beca in this chapter? Haha. Thank you so much for your review. :)

 **pinappletini** (Feb. 4) - Hope you enjoyed this between your classes haha. I hope you got the insight, not so much on Beca's reaction to seeing Stacie again but more on Luke and her thoughts on leaving/staying. Obviously, it's not the end of the tensions between them but they're on their way to full closure. (Or not, who knows? Haha.)

 **Maggie** (Feb. 4) - On the Rogue question: I don't want to give too much away but the answer is a bit of a yes/no. It's not Rogue's _exact_ powers, but it is functionally similar. On your second message: Hmm I'm interested to know what that other story was haha. I'm sure different writers have different styles, and different genres attract different people. :) I'm glad you find it interesting and that you continue to read it. As long as imagination exists, I see a definite end to this story, so don't worry. :)

 **Psychic Guest** (Feb. 4) - Haha I'll keep your suspicions of the tissue paper in mind. You're correct! That _was_ Emily haha. Again, I purposely left of Staubrey's confrontation in favor of Beca and Luke's on purpose because I'm bad that way. On your predictions: they definitely have become friends with Benji (I think Beca being his trainer is going to be fun); they definitely will run into Luke and Stacie again soon but how soon and over what, we don't know yet (well, _I_ know), haha yes of all the ships Fat Bumper is actually canon so it would be a disservice not to include more of them; and definitely, _definitely_ more John and Charlene. Your predictions are hot! You deserve a medal.

 **xcombixgirlx** (Feb. 5) - I do, too! There's way too much violence and hatred that come from those kinds of people. Unfortunately, this is the world they (and we) live in.

* * *

 **A/N:** Another reason this chapter was filler-ish is that the next ones will spiral into the main Season Three plot. In other words, shit is about to go _down_. Enjoy this moment of lightheartedness because I might not be able to show them having fun in any capacity soon.

Also, not that you would care / have noticed, but I messed up the dates. I realized after seeing the banners in PP2 that PP1 _started_ in 2011 and _ended_ in 2012. So Chapter 1 actually happens in 2010 and Beca's freshman year in college is set in 2011.


	23. Fighting Our Demons

**Author's** **caveat** : A lot of text-heavy action ahead (I think). If you're a casual/dialogue-only reader, you might miss some things that turn up later in the story but I don't think it'll be that difficult to piece together.

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Three: Fighting Our Demons**

A few weeks had passed since the paintball game that was won by someone who was somehow both the least- _and_ most-expected mutant to win. Other than a brief, half-hearted attempt by Beca to protest that Emily's powers made her ineligible to play in the first place, everything quickly went back to normal in the weeks that followed.

Well, almost everything.

In response to Charlene's criticism, Aubrey had suggested a new training rotation—which was immediately rejected by Charlene in favor of a complete overhaul of the system. Charlene abolished the student-assigned training and set up a specialty-assigned training system instead.

"You've been going at it one-on-one when you should have been approaching the students with a zone defense," she had explained the morning after. "When it was just me and the Professor, _he_ dealt with their physical exercises while _I_ focused on power development. We're going to adapt a similar model. I'll take over power development to speed things up; Aubrey and Chloe—"

Chloe had been promoted to an honorary trainer, due to her excellence in physical combat. It was also to distract her from her own disappointing progress power-wise, but no one dared to point _that_ out.

"—you two will handle all the physical training necessary to get these students in shape and start helping out on missions. We can't keep sending you guys to deal with unregistered mutants and Heartless and whatnot. It's interfering with your studies _and_ your work as trainers."

Beca had wanted to make a face that showed she didn't mind the excuse not to study and work, but then she realized that she actually did mind for another reason: Her shifts at the radio station were breaks of normalcy she did _not_ want to give up.

"Jesse and Beca," Charlene had continued, "will be in charge of developing techniques. The two of you will be working closely with me—that way I can keep an eye on Beca," she had added scathingly, "but also because the techniques you mutants will be attempting to learn will all be coming from me."

And that was how Emily ended up in the basement training rooms with Beca that morning, trying to learn how to do a proper air-walk from someone who could literally control air.

"Like… this?" Emily asked tentatively, holding her arms out to her sides as though balancing on a tightrope. She lifted her foot steadily and rested it about four inches in the air. Then, she gingerly shifted her weight forward and lifted her other foot. To Emily, it felt like walking with closed eyes—she didn't know if she was going to fall, and the not knowing was the worst part.

It also didn't help that she could feel Beca's eyes on her. Emily recalled how those cool, gunmetal blue eyes flickered to hers amusedly when Beca had jokingly protested against her winning the paintball game. She even had to stop herself from agreeing out of sheer admiration for Beca.

 _I mean, who wouldn't be impressed by her_ , she thought, _after everything Beca has done?_

At least, after the _rumors_ of everything Beca had done. Emily was certain that not everything she heard from her fellow mewbies was true—that Beca went to literal hell and back to rescue Chloe; that Beca single-handedly defeated one thousand Heartless in the video that got leaked; or that Beca had the President's private cell number on speed dial. But Emily was inclined to believe that they were all based on a solid layer of fact.

She hovered for a moment in mid-air before realizing that she had actually accomplished it and was already in the middle of taking her second step. Irrationally panicking over what Beca must be thinking of her, Emily lost her footing and dropped back to the mat with a soft _thud_.

"You lost focus," observed Beca, lazily making a note of it on the progress report.

Emily blushed and lowered her head apologetically. Beca, despite having only trained with Emily twice since the change, took notice of her unorthodox behavior. "Is something bothering you?" she asked.

Emily looked up and back down again quickly. "You are… kind of intimidating."

While cursing herself for saying something so lame and fan-girly, she saw Beca raise her eyebrows and opened her mouth to respond—and Emily's vision blurred and she suddenly felt dizzy—but closed it quickly. "You lost focus," Beca said again, looking down at the tablet to make another note of it.

"I'm sorry," said Emily, grateful with the deflection but still wishing she wasn't such a spaz in front of her idol.

"So we're going to do it again and, um, try not so much to _materialize_ the air," advised Beca. "Since your power isn't super similar to mine, that might not be the way to go."

"Okay," Emily nodded meekly. "How do you think I should approach it?"

"Try _de_ -materializing _yourself_ ," answered Beca. "You can phase through physical objects, right? Just think of the air as a really, really, _really_ loose physical object. Choose which particles you go through, and which particles you don't."

Emily took a deep breath and tried again. She really liked Beca and thought that the aerokinetic brunette was a really good teacher, but she kind of wished Beca would talk more… personally. But then again Emily kind of liked the whole vibe Beca was giving off—closed off and sarcastic—especially when juxtaposed with the bright and bubbly Chloe Beale. Not that it needed to be said, but Emily was probably the biggest fan of two older girls' relationship. Her obsession began the first time she walked in on them.

It was her first night at Barden and she had been feeling a little homesick. She had left her old school and many friends back home to deal with what she came to realize, after the whole viral video thing, was a _mutant_ power. She had been able to keep her unusual abilities a secret from her family and friends for so long because, thankfully, being able to go through walls wasn't as bothersome as the other stories she had heard from her fellow mebwies. Waking up in her cold basement and getting her butt stuck on a chair were tied for the worst things that have happened to her as a consequence of her mutation, but others at Barden, she learned, have had to explain broken down doors or, worst of them all, injuries accidentally inflicted on others. So Emily counted herself lucky for being able to control her powers more easily than most.

Coming to Barden was a scary and exciting change, and she naively looked forward to doing the same things she saw those mutants do on the video—fighting bad guys. They got to fight these weird creatures called "Heartless" that Emily thought looked like they came out of some crazy video game. But maybe "fight" was not the appropriate word since, until recently, she had been part of the Gamma team—the team that did rescue ops or other non-combative missions.

But after recently being bumped up to the Beta team, Emily was excited to get in on the action, even if it was dangerous.

Leaving the comfort and safety of her home turned out not to be that big of a problem for her. Her parents were understandingly concerned about enrolling her at Barden, but were also excited for her. And most of her friends back home were supportive—only a handful thought of distancing themselves from her, which she didn't mind. Like her parents, Emily was a perennial optimist.

But this optimism didn't stop her from getting homesick on the first night. Missing the tire swing in her backyard that she frequented when in deep thought, Emily wandered out into Barden's gardens, where she swore she saw a swing set on her way into the mansion. She was right, and she did find it not far from the edge of the gardens. But it was already occupied.

Emily had instantly recognized the figures of Beca Mitchell and Chloe Beale—two of the four people who seemed to have been at Barden for a long time—swaying and talking in quiet, gentle tones. She didn't want to intrude on their private moment, so she had turned around to leave, but she inadvertently caught the end of something that sounded like an agreement to keep things secret for a while.

And ever since that night, Emily felt a connection with the couple (a weird, one-sided sort of a connection) because she was in on their secret, which was why she had _almost_ offered Beca the single room outright after winning the paintball game.

 _Almost_ , because Aubrey had warned her not to, telling her about some millionaire businessman...

"Emily?"

Emily looked down from where she was, two feet in the air. She must have been so distracted by her own thoughts that air walking had suddenly become natural to her.

"Time's up," said Beca, giving Emily a polite smile.

"Oh. Okay."

Emily looked at her feet and thought for a moment how she was supposed to get down, and then chuckled to herself when she realized it was so simple. Once on the ground, she walked over to the exit, waving at Beca.

"Wait, where are you going?" called Beca.

Emily froze and turned around. "I thought you said time's up?" she asked, wracking her brain, trying to remember if she didn't hallucinate that part.

"No, I—" Beca glanced at her watch and made a satisfied face. "We've still got ten minutes but, you know what, I say you've made pretty good progress today. We can call it a wrap." Beca looked pleased to be ending early while Emily attributed her confusion to just not getting what the older brunette's had meant by "time's up."

"A-are you sure?" asked Emily, not wanting Beca to get in trouble with Aubrey or Charlene.

Reading her mind (figuratively), Beca gave Emily a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry, kid—Emily, sorry. Not supposed to call you guys that anymore." She grimaced sheepishly. "Uh, I wrote a pretty decent report, even Aubrey couldn't complain. Besides, I need the extra ten minutes to apologize to Chloe," Beca added absentmindedly. "Bye!"

"Okay…" Emily nodded. "Wait, apologize for what—?"

But Beca had already left the room.

* * *

Cynthia Rose leaned back on her chair and stretched her arms over her head. Working on the weapon was getting tedious, given that there had still been no progress on the exact origins of the genomic mutations. On the bright side, she reflected, the delay had been a good reason for her to suggest 'budget cuts' to Gail, and get rid of the trigger-happy douchebags whom she suspected, thanks to that note from Stacie, were trying to sell the anti-mutant weapon plans to a third party.

She looked across the small circular room at Justin, who was alternating between tapping away at a computer and looking through a microscope. "Justin, man, you've been looking at the DNA samples for almost a month now. Is there _any_ progress?"

Justin sighed and ran a hand through his light brown hair. "It's too complicated. There are seven unique, identifiable origins for all seven of the samples we managed to get. That doesn't really help us."

Cynthia Rose grabbed a folder on her desk and tossed it at him. "It helped _me_ ," she said, and pulled up a test tube from her desk. "These chemical cocktails can suppress three of them."

Justin gave the notes a half-hearted glance before plopping them down on the table. "Yeah, but that's exactly my point. You got three _out of the seven_. It's not going to be a very efficient weapon if you'd have to keep changing ammo based on the mutant you were trying to suppress, would it?"

"Well, what if that's really the only solution?" said Cynthia Rose, throwing her hands up in defeat.

In reality, she was pleased with the complicated results of their research so far. The weapon was turning out to be expensive, inefficient, and hard to manufacture—the perfect recipe for shutting down the project altogether. Then, maybe she could go back to Barden and get that business degree she had her eyes on, living a semi-normal life as a registered mutant with the assurance that there was nothing the government could do to threaten her safety.

"No, there _has_ to be a more elegant solution," muttered Justin.

Cynthia Rose sighed. As well-meaning as Justin was, she wished he saw it from her perspective: that nothing good can come out of creating a weapon that could stop mutants.

"I know what you're doing, you know," said Justin, pausing to jot down notes. "You're purposely delaying the research so the people upstairs will start to think this is a waste of money and stop."

Cynthia Rose merely shrugged.

"You already got rid of our teammates—"

"Which was a good thing, by the way," she pointed out. "Some of those were crooks."

"Yeah, well…" Justin put down the pen and rolled his way over to Cynthia Rose's desk. "Look, I love mutants as much as the next guy—well, admittedly _more_ than the next guy, but you get the point—and I _want_ you guys to thrive! I don't think your mutations are anomalies, I think they're _evolutionary responses_. Mankind is mutating to adapt to the changing world and that's awesome."

Cynthia Rose humored him and waved a hand over his table. "And your proof, sir?"

Justin's shoulders sagged. "The proof is on the horizon. But my point is, I also believe that this weapon _has_ to be created for there to be peace first. After that, there will be no need for a weapon."

"So… you're arguing that we need to _make_ a weapon so that the weapon _itself_ will no longer be needed?" Cynthia Rose said skeptically.

"It's all about law and order," said Justin.

"The TV show?" Cynthia Rose said dryly.

Justin shook his head. "The concepts. Society needs order for stability, and stability for prosperity and growth," Justin explained wisely. "Laws protect that order. The MRA intended to keep the order between mutants and others, but laws are worth shit on their own, they need—"

"Enforcement. Yeah, I get it."

"Right." Justin whirled back to his place. "As much as you hate the idea of it, the weapon is the system's response to reach order again. It won't be used against you unless you do something bad so it's win-win, really."

"Yeah, and no innocent person has ever been a victim of weapons that were meant to protect order because of an unjust, societal predisposition against them, right?"

"Um…"

* * *

Beca skidded around the corner of the residential wing's hallway when she saw the familiar flash of red hair. "Chloe!"

Chloe turned around and put on a hard face when she saw that it was Beca approaching, which Beca did not take as a good sign. "Beca, I'm really not in the mood right now—"

"Look, I just wanted to say sorry… again… for yesterday."

Chloe looked Beca straight in the eyes for a beat. "You're not sorry."

"Okay, I'm not sorry," Beca admitted almost instantaneously, unable to lie to Chloe. "See? You read me so well—your powers _are_ developing!"

This was apparently _not_ the right thing to say, as Chloe gave her a withering look before turning on her heel and stomping away.

"That was a joke!" Beca hurried after her. "A stupid, stupid joke—Chloe, come on," she took on a more serious tone and made a grab for Chloe's hand. "I'm not sorry because I won't ever apologize for wanting to keep you safe."

That was a better thing to say, as it got Chloe to stop walking and soften up a bit.

Only a bit.

"Beca, I know you're trying to protect me, and I know you think you're being nice," said Chloe, "but can you imagine how that makes _me_ feel, when you deliberately ask for me to be kept out of missions?"

Beca looked up and down the hallway and saw a gaggle of girls hanging around outside their bedroom doors. Beca pulled Chloe around the corner and down a few steps for privacy. "Okay, I _am_ sorry for how that made you feel," she clarified. "But, Chlo, going on missions isn't a way to validate your worth here. Fighting Heartless and stopping unreggies aren't our only responsibilities. Helping mutants reach their full potential is just as, if not _more_ , important."

Chloe narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. "I'd be convinced if you did a better job at looking like you actually believe in what you just said."

"I do—!"

Aubrey's voice blaring through the speakers interrupted Beca's defense and announced, "Alpha and Gamma teams, report to departure bay immediately. Responding to red-level threat in New York City. ETD is five minutes. I repeat…"

Beca and Chloe exchanged looks. Beca would have flinched at the ferocity in Chloe's eyes if she didn't find it so damn sexy. Being a legitimate member of the Alpha team, Chloe raised her eyebrow, as though challenging Beca to deny her the mission. Beca half-heartedly rolled her eyes and held out her hand. "Come on, then."

Chloe smiled at Beca for the first time since coming home the previous day and clasped their hands together. Moments later, they met up with Aubrey, Jesse, and a handful of the mewbies in the underground hangar where they kept the jet. The Alpha and Gamma teams geared up for the mission and boarded the plane quickly to begin briefing.

Aubrey adjusted her sleek, black gloves as she oversaw the boarding process and began handing out their earpieces. Jesse put his on and made his way to the pilot's seat while Chloe did the same right beside him as his co-pilot. Beca strapped herself into the seat behind Chloe's and listened to Aubrey's command.

"Okay, so, approximately twelve minutes ago, an explosion occurred in Lower Manhattan," said Aubrey. "It was relatively small but the concern is that whoever was behind it is still terrorizing the area. The Alpha team is in charge of dealing with the perpetrators while, Gamma team, you are _strictly_ limited to rescue ops only. I will _not_ have a repeat of last time."

"Are they Heartless?" Beca asked with a confused frown. "Manhattan is a pretty populated area and this seems like a big deal—why are we the ones being called in?"

"The perpetrators are unregistered mutants."

Beca blinked. Jesse and Chloe exchanged concerned looks and twisted their heads back to look at Aubrey. It was unusual for unregistered mutants to cause trouble on such a large scale. From past experience, the Barden students had observed that unregistered mutants only targeted small, anti-mutant establishments and were usually provoked before attacking.

"I know," Aubrey said gravely. "And it's not their usual MO—attacking the financial capital of the world is clearly their way of sending a message, which is why we need to respond ASAP before that message gets misinterpreted."

"Are there any casualties?" asked Chloe.

"It's too early to tell but I'm getting live updates from Gail. But actually…" Aubrey frowned down at her phone as she received updates. "I might be wrong; the damages actually seem consistent with their MO: only damaging property, taking no hostages—"

"Do you think they're the same ones we missed in Chicago last week?" asked Beca.

"It could be but then…" Aubrey looked over at Beca. "Do you think that means these attacks are premeditated?"

"What does that mean?" asked one of the Gamma team mewbies, the vortex kid Beca had humiliated during the paintball game.

"It could mean that these are planned attacks," said Aubrey. "And that those behind them are part of an organized group of unregistered mutants."

"Organized?" muttered Jesse.

"Hey, don't even go there," warned Beca. "Luke _swore_ they weren't involved in that. Besides, it's not totally impossible to imagine another group of mutants coming together and organizing themselves like this, is it?"

"Without our resources, training, and combat experience?" said Aubrey, not to contribute to the discussion but to show her skepticism. "I mean, how many mutants are even out there that we haven't already met?"

Beca leaned back in her seat and sighed, crossing her fingers in hope that they weren't going to have another grim reunion with their former Barden classmates.

* * *

For the fifth time that morning, Cynthia Rose leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms over her head. "Ay't, that's it," she declared. "I'm not getting paid unless I clock in eight hours, but I'm not getting any work done either unless you have something to give me so…" She swiveled her chair over to Justin's desk. "Just let me help you, man."

"I don't know," Justin said hesitantly. "No offense, but you have a high-school-level knowledge of biology. I don't th-think…" Justin faltered under Cynthia Rose's glare.

"I also have four years of real-life experience in kicking ass, do you want a lesson in that?"

Justin gulped and cleared his throat. "No. So, um, okay. Rather than trying to find hereditary links between parents and mutant child, I'm trying to figure out whether the mutation existed from birth, or if it developed during puberty."

"You can find that out from the samples you got?"

"Uh, not really," sighed Justin. "It's not like I can go back in time to study one of you so I'm using the next best thing: younger siblings. It's not the best solution, and they're not guaranteed to have the mutant gene even if it _was_ hereditary, but I have a one-in-three chance of getting it."

"As long as it wastes time," smirked Cynthia Rose. "But does this mean we can rule out the gene being inherited from an older gen—"

Cynthia Rose froze. Justin noticed her reaction and looked up curiously. "What?"

"The older generation," finished Cynthia Rose, a look of realization on her face. "The _first_ generation of mutants. Patient Zero."

Justin's eyes widened. "I thought they were all wiped out?"

" _I_ heard they just went into hiding," frowned Cynthia Rose. "Who told you they were wiped out?"

"Rumors," shrugged Justin. "Besides, before the whole Barden issue, they were gradually becoming an urban legend of the eighties. What makes you think we'll find one of them now?"

"But if there was a way to figure out who these mutants were, track them down and possibly their children—would that help your research?"

Justin nodded vigorously. "Hells yes! With both sets of DNA, I might finally be able to isolate the common origin of mutation across all mutants, and you can find a way to temporarily neutralize it."

"Then let's go," said Cynthia Rose. "I think I know just the people to ask about this."

Justin leapt off his chair and struggled to catch up to an excited Cynthia Rose. "No mutant born before the nineties has ever registered though—if the mutant gene can be inherited, don't you think the registered mutants' parents would have registered, too?"

"I don't know. A weird number of students at Barden have suspiciously absentee parents…"

The elevator dinged and opened up to the 52nd floor, where Jack and Gail's office was. The husband and wife were speaking rapidly, overlapping each other's sentences in a nonsense conversation. Cynthia Rose only later realized that they were both speaking into wireless headsets attached to their ears.

"Okay, I'll have to call you back," Gail was saying into hers while Jack, with a frown on his face, was saying, "Huh… okay, just send over the paperwork and I'll get back to you by the end of the day. Thanks."

After they detached the device from their ears, Jack asked, "Honey, do you have any idea why I'm being asked to sign off on twelve thousand dollars' worth of music equipment at Barden?"

"Uh, maybe it's for that sonar kid's training—anyway, you two seem to have news?" Gail asked, turning to Cynthia Rose and Justin expectantly.

"Actually, we have questions—"

Suddenly, Jack's assistant barged into the office, worriedly wringing his hands. "Sorry for the interruption, sir," he said. "There's been an attack in the Financial District—"

"An attack?" Jack rose from his chair just as his and Gail's phones simultaneously started ringing.

"The—the mayor said unregistered mutants are behind it." Jack, Gail, and Cynthia Rose exchanged looks. "Everywhere south of Chambers is being evacuated. We are advised to do the same just in case—"

"I've alerted Barden," said Gail, typing away at her computer. "Are you sure he said _unregistered mutants_? This doesn't seem like their usual M.O.—"

"I'll get down there and check it out," Cynthia Rose said curtly, turning on her heel and running out the door.

"This feels like Chicago all over again," Jack muttered grimly. "Mass panic and the focus is back on the mutants…"

"Sir, I think you should—"

"We'll be fine here, Jonathan," said Gail, cutting into the assistant's worried plea. "I'll leave the decision to evacuate to our employees' discretion. They're free to go if they wish."

Jonathan opened and closed his mouth before leaving the office all flustered.

"We'll have to monitor the press—" began Jack.

"Already on it." Gail continued her purposeful typing while Jack proceeded to answer his phone and fend off concerned stakeholders. After twenty minutes of this, Gail announced that the students had arrived in the city. "Aubrey says..." She frowned, reading off the text. "Aubrey says there are _Heartless_ on the East River."

"That's not unusual… is it? Heartless still appear on a regular basis."

"I don't know. It could be a coincidence that they came right after an attack by unregistered mutants but—oh, Justin!"

Justin jumped at the mention of his name. He had forgotten that he himself was in the room, and focused on watching the two work through the crisis in harmony.

Gail smiled apologetically at the geneticist. "I'm sorry, Cynthia Rose said you had questions?"

"Uh…" Justin looked between Jack, Gail, and the phones still ringing. "I can come back. This doesn't really seem like the time—"

"Nonsense," said Jack. "We can't let every little Heartless attack or unregistered mutant uprising stop us from doing our jobs. And your work is critical to stopping the latter."

"In that case…" Justin smoothed his shirt nervously. "What do you know about the first generation of mutants?"

* * *

Beca should have been old enough to realize that crossing fingers does not, in fact, affect the outcome of reality. Immediately after disembarking the jet and making their way to the center of the deserted Financial District, Beca caught a glimpse of something long, thin, and stretchy shoot up from the far end of the street.

"Son of a bitch," she cursed under her breath. Sneaking away from the rest of the Barden group, which had gathered around Aubrey for instructions, Beca flew swiftly toward the buildings behind which she saw the lengthy brunette vanish.

The scene around her was a sight not unfamiliar but nevertheless chilling to Beca: the streets and buildings of lower Manhattan looked empty and abandoned, various alarms sounded, and everything seemed to be coated in a whitish gray film of dust and rubble.

"I can't believe you guys are behind this!" she hissed, flying directly in front of Stacie's upper half, cutting her off from entering a building from its shattered twelfth floor window.

Stacie barely flinched in surprise. "I was wondering when you guys would get here."

"What—?"

"Beca!"

Beca turned toward the faint sound of her name and saw Chloe, who had apparently run after her when she took off, looking up at them from below. Beca grimaced guiltily and gestured at her to wait before turning back at Stacie to demand an explanation. "Luke told me you guys had nothing to do with these attacks!"

"That's true," Stacie insisted before swerving around Beca to enter the building.

Beca signaled Chloe to wait for her and followed Stacie in.

"We're conducting rescue ops, just like you," Stacie continued dryly, maneuvering through cubicles to reach a secluded office.

"If it wasn't you guys…" Beca landed on the floor of the building and jogged after her in confusion. "Who caused the attacks?"

"Heartless." Stacie inserted her finger into the office's keyhole, allowing her to turn the lock from the inside.

Beca frowned. "There were no reports of Heartless activity."

Stacie twisted around and it was her turn to look at Beca in confusion. "Well, that doesn't make any sense. Heartless were swarming the city when we got here half an hour ago."

"But we didn't see any Heartless when we landed."

"We pushed them back toward the East River," said Stacie, moving behind the desk and switching on the computer. "Aubrey and the others might even be on their way there as we speak. Hey, do you still use our old team names?" she asked as an afterthought.

As she worked through her confusion, Beca watched Stacie connect a device to the computer and begin tapping at the keys. "You call this rescue ops?" she said skeptically.

"Well, I'm rescuing my FarmVille crops from withering, does that count?"

"You know, you didn't have _me_ -levels of sarcasm back when—"

"When I was at Barden?" Stacie finished with a smirk. "Life on the street, Becs, it changes you. You should go, Chloe might be getting worried."

Beca hesitated. "What are you doing?" she demanded, feeling it was only half effective given that her tone was more curious than it was demanding.

"Hmm… why don't you let the rebels deal with the big problems, okay?" Stacie replied in a patronizing yet still somewhat friendly manner. "Without all the strict training regimens, we need to have something _better_ to do with our powers."

The veiled insult hit too close to home for Beca, so she rolled her eyes and flew away from Stacie as fast as possible before she could retort something unpleasant.

Chloe was waiting for her on the street below, holding a finger to her ear. "Aubrey said they detected some level thirty Heartless near the East River," she informed Beca once she was on the ground beside her. "Luke and the others are there, too. You should put your earpiece on, by the way."

Beca's hand flew to her ear and realized she had forgotten it on the jet. "Rats. Oh, well. Anyway, Stacie said the Heartless were already here when _they_ arrived thirty minutes ago. Why did Aubrey say the explosions were caused by unreggies? You don't suppose she actually believes Luke's behind it, do you? I mean, Stacie said they were doing rescue ops..."

Chloe hummed thoughtfully and stepped behind Beca. "If they're helping us, then that should clear their names, right? But either way, our mission objective is to clear the area of Heartless, while yours is—"

"To seal the Corridor. Got it." Beca bent over and let Chloe hop onto her back, ready for takeoff.

They arrived a few seconds later to the battle in full swing. As they approached the battlefield, Beca silently wondered why Aubrey had thought a giant, squid-like Heartless roughly the size of a coliseum was a mere, 'level thirty,' considering it was the biggest Heartless they had ever faced. The monstrous squid had its body halfway above the surface of the river, some of its tentacles hovering menacingly in the air while others made furious swipes at the mutants by the esplanade, where other Heartless had also gathered.

Beca gently put Chloe down several yards from the heat of action and they both surveyed the scene. "There's someone trapped in the giant Heartless' tentacle," pointed Chloe.

Beca herself was more concerned about the Heartless in the vicinity. Despite being far away from the battlefield, a handful of demon-type Heartless had already begun looking their way, and several weaker Heartless started closing in on them; it didn't take a math genius to see that they were outnumbered. Thinking fast, Beca swung her Keyblade in a wide sweep and knocked out a row of them before they got any closer. This seemed to encourage the others to begin swarming toward her and Chloe.

"Beca, you have to go help her," said Chloe, touching Beca's arm and splitting her attention back toward the river. After seeing the hesitance in her girlfriend's eyes, the redhead added firmly, "I can take care of myself, remember? It'll be over quickly, I promise. Just _go_."

Beca nodded reluctantly and gave her a quick peck on the lips before flying off toward the squid monster to help the person trapped in its grip. She released her Keyblade and slashed the Heartless' thick appendage. It wasn't enough to dismember the Heartless, but it was enough to do the job; the monster flailed its hurt tentacle, releasing the trapped girl into the air. Beca made to catch her, but the girl twirled in mid-air and spread her iridescent wings with a flourish.

"Alice!"

The dark-haired pixie swerved out of the way as the tentacle that was previously holding her fell limp into the river. "Don't think this means I owe you one, Mitchell," snapped Alice.

Beca smirked in spite of the pixie's remark. Life on the street didn't change everyone, apparently. "Oh, Alice. You never did have a grateful bone in your body that wasn't some desperate guy's dick."

Alice flipped her off before flying away. Beca looked back down at the Heartless and continued surveying the battlefield to formulate plan: Aubrey, Chloe, and Jesse were all preoccupied with fighting the Heartless on land, leaving the giant squid to the members of Luke's group, including Luke himself.

She finally caught sight of the blond Englishman in his metal form charging toward the fence bordering the waterfront. A glowing purple hole materialized a few feet before his imminent collision, while another one opened across the water, right at the center of the squid Heartless' bulbous head. Luke disappeared through the first portal and emerged out the second, throwing all his weight into a superhumanly powerful punch.

The giant Heartless staggered and thrust its tentacles out in all directions in an attempt to gain balance, splashing water everywhere as it did.

* * *

Back on land, Chloe jumped out of the way as a giant translucent tentacle crashed in front of her and dug into the cement to gain purchase. The demon-like Heartless she had been fighting took the opportunity to charge at her with its wickedly curved sword. Chloe parried its attacks expertly with her arms and twisted the weapon out of the Heartless' grip. Then, using a technique she copied from Beca's aerokinesis training, she leapt into the air, spun, and brought the sword down on the unsuspecting tentacle behind her. She used the added force of gravity to dig further in until she heard the edge of the blade scrape the ground, separating the chopped off piece of Heartless cleanly.

The squid monster writhed in pain and started angrily swiping at everything, even fellow Heartless, on the ground and in the air.

* * *

Beca narrowly dodged a flailing tentacle while surveying the scene and keeping both eyes peeled for the Corridor, or the Heartless' weak spot, whichever came first—but her eyes were suddenly compromised by the huge splash of water that the Heartless caused when quickly withdrawing its severed limb all the way from the shore. She jerkily flew backwards, spitting out disgusting river water and wiping it out of her eyes, and didn't see that she was headed straight into the path of a structure of metal beams that had been detached from an abandoned construction site by the Heartless' retreating tentacles.

"Beca!"

Beca opened her eyes and found herself in the middle of criss-crossing bars of metal. Stationary. In mid air.

"What are you doing? Quit flying around and seal the hole already!" yelled Luke, all the way from the esplanade, and slowly brought his arms down along with the metal bars.

 _Wait—Luke?!_

* * *

"Why am I not surprised?"

Stacie looked up from the computer. "Oh, hey. You just missed Beca by a minute or two."

"This is a federal building, girl. Even while empty, you know they have eyes and ears _everywhere_ ," warned Cynthia Rose.

"Already disabled."

Cynthia Rose frowned. "How?"

"We might have help from some of the other rejects of society," Stacie replied coyly.

Cynthia Rose gave a disapproving sniff. "If he's good enough to hack into high-level security, what are you still here for?"

"He's not _that_ good." Stacie looked up with a smirk. "And why do you ask? Are you jealous, CR? When all of this is over, how about you two arrange your own hackathon to see who's the better hacker or something."

Cynthia Rose laughed fondly, glad to learn that Stacie still saw a happy ending to all of this. "What are you looking for anyway? It can't be the weapon's plans—"

"—which I already have, as I'm sure you know."

"Yeah," nodded Cynthia Rose. "Thanks for the warning, by the way."

"That weapon had a shitty design but I still wouldn't have let it get in the hands of other people who might want us dead," said Stacie.

"What was so wrong about its design?"

Stacie rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to give you tips! You're the bad guys."

Cynthia Rose laughed. "I hope you don't really mean that, Stace."

"Hmm… I don't know," teased Stacie, finishing up with her work. "You're the only one I know who can argue two sides of an argument and still win. I can never really be sure whose side you're really on."

"So I see things from more than one angle—I never leave the side of what's _right_ ," defended Cynthia Rose.

"You're also an excellent gambler, so I can never tell when you're lying," Stacie pointed out. She stood up and walked around the desk to stand face-to-face with her old friend. "And out of suspicious curiosity… why are _you_ here?"

Cynthia Rose sighed. "So that's it? You don't trust me anymore? After all the years we've worked together?"

"Don't take it personally," Stacie said with a sad smile. "We're all past the point of taking _trust_ lightly."

Before Stacie left the room, Cynthia Rose finally answered her question. "I came here to thank you for the heads up. Whoever was planning to sell the plans is no longer in the team; they got laid off while I was slowing down the weapon's progress as much as I can—which is what _I've_ been doing. You know, as a member of the _bad guys_."

Stacie gave her one last look over her shoulder. "How very noble of you."

* * *

One of the angry tentacles that swept the ground after she had chopped off its sibling pushed Chloe extremely forcefully against the demonic Heartless and sent them both crashing into a building nearly two blocks away. And, unfortunately, none of the training equipment at the Barden Institute duly prepared Chloe for the experience of having the wind knocked out of her as she was crushed against debris and the weight of the demonic Heartless. Coughing and gasping for air, she had no energy left in her to resist being grabbed by the front of her suit and thrown back onto the street.

Flying through the air, Chloe had never desired her telekinetic powers more, imagining it would save her the pain she was about to feel from landing on her already bruised back. But all she could do was groan and stare angrily up at the Heartless, which seemed to almost return the glare as it floated menacingly toward her. Chloe briefly wondered if the Heartless had some personal vendetta against her specifically, or if she was just imagining it, because its dedication to hurting her was unsettling.

The demonic Heartless lifted Chloe off the ground once more and into a bone-crushing hug, causing her to scream in pain before choking up from having the air literally squeezed out of her. The earpiece immediately activated and Aubrey's voice called out in concern. "Chloe! Are you okay? What's your location?"

Her lungs devoid of air, Chloe couldn't respond and the next thing she knew, the Heartless had sprouted wings and in a second they were both hurtling into the— "A-air!" she managed to choke out.

The extremely rapid rate at which they were ascending made her dizzy and the air whipping past her ears drowned out the sound of Aubrey's voice.

* * *

Beca flew back down to earth. "Luke, what the—?"

"Listen, Becky, can we talk about this when we're not in the middle of fighting a giant squid?" the Brit said before blowing on a whistle tied around his wrist.

Beca raised her eyebrow in amusement at the tiny object. "A little old fashioned, isn't it?"

Luke smirked and made the military hand sign for 'rally point' with his free hand. Another purple portal appeared closer to Luke, and Lilly stepped out all wide-eyed and eager. Beca looked up just as Alice came flying toward them, landing gracefully beside Luke, and then she turned her head to the sound of rushing water seconds before Flo sprang from the river like some sort of majestic water fairy.

Beca felt a twinge of nostalgia and jealousy as she witnessed Luke's new team regroup around him. She could easily tell from their individual demeanors that Lilly, Alice, and Flo all trusted Luke and felt safe under his command.

"Becs?"

Beca turned around. Jesse had caught up to them, drenched from head to toe and shaking water out of his ears. Apparently, after finishing off the remaining land-based Heartless, he had been grabbed by the squid and tossed into the river. "Where's—Look out!" Jesse thrust his arms out and split the ground apart to save the group from getting trampled by another tentacle. "Have you figured out where the Corridor is yet?" he yelled over the sound of crushing concrete.

"No luck," Beca coughed through the dust. "You'd think a rip big enough to let that giant through is easy to find…"

"A giant rip?" asked Flo, intrigued. "Is it like a big toilet after a diarrhea?"

Beca and Jesse winced and gagged, respectively, but Flo was pretty spot on with her description. "Sounds like it," nodded Beca. "Have you seen it?"

Flo pointed to the water.

"It's underwater? Huh…" It was their first time encountering a purely elemental Heartless, so Beca would never have guessed that the Corridor would emerge from its element. It was incredibly lucky, then, that Flo had seen it.

Beca's planning was interrupted by another imminent attack, causing them to disperse. Flo dove back into the water, Alice flew backward, and Jesse brought Beca and himself away from the crushing blow. Only Luke had remained, in his metal form, at the center. He formed a sharp point with his arms above his head and induced the Heartless to stab itself on his body.

"Its reactions get slower the more limbs we take off," observed Alice, flying over to inform Beca and Jesse. "We should…" She trailed off and squinted toward the waterfront. Something was climbing out of the water—

"Oh, fuck. More Heartless."

Luke jogged toward them. "We'll take care of the Heartless. Beca, can you—?"

"On it." Beca looked across the water and saw Flo attempting to climb the head of the Heartless, looking for its weak spot. "Uh, can you get a message to Flo? If she can, I need her to swim around the Heartless as fast as she can—make some sort of whirlpool to get as much of the Heartless all in one place."

Luke nodded. "Lilly, can you—wait, where's Lilly?" He looked around wildly. The quiet Asian was nowhere to be found; she wasn't near the Heartless either.

"I'll do it," offered Alice, taking off not a second later.

"Jesse…?" Luke began tentatively, unsure how Jesse felt about taking orders from him again.

"Lay it on me, mate," grinned Jesse.

Luke grinned. "Great. Follow my lead, okay?" He held his arms out toward the metal beams he had saved Beca from and manipulated them into thin, razor-like giant blades. If Jesse was surprised at Luke's new ability, he didn't show it; he simply mimicked Luke until they both had several blades hovering behind them.

Together, the three charged toward the river. Beca flew ahead swiftly and dove into the water, keeping a ball of air around her mouth and nostrils for breathing. Once underwater, the Corridor was a lot more visible to Beca, and it _did_ look like a swirling, black and purple mass resulting from a hellish diarrhea. However, it was also situated right underneath the coliseum-sized Heartless, which complicated things. And the smaller, fishy Heartless that continued to squeeze their way through the Corridor only made it more difficult.

Beca knew that she didn't have time to deal with them, she decided to make sealing the Corridor her only priority, so she swam past the schools of Heartless fish, trusting that Luke and Jesse could easily take care of them once they were sucked into the whirlpool. Some of them tackled and attempted to bite her on her way down, but while literally not being in her element Beca could do little to stop them, besides haphazardly swinging her Keyblade every now and then. She ground her teeth and ignored the pain and possible infection she was bound to get, and just kicked her legs harder.

Flo came swimming from around the Heartless and flashed Beca the 'ok' sign. Beca nodded and returned the gesture, signaling the more adept swimmer to begin the whirlpool. Beca clumsily positioned herself near the Corridor—making a mental note to suggest swimming in all the students' physical exercises—and in turn began the slow process of sealing the giant rip.

Their plan appeared to be working; the fishy Heartless were being sucked back toward the giant squid and consequently taken care of by Luke and Jesse's metal blades, and the Corridor was sealing without interruption. And after several minutes of their continued and combined effort, Beca looked up in relief to see the gargantuan squid Heartless finally dissipating into hundreds of shining hearts. As she watched from below, Beca felt uneasy at the sheer amount of hearts released; it reminded her of what Chloe had said about where those hearts go.

As the water began settling down, Flo came swimming toward Beca and gave her a thumbs up. Beca grinned and returned the thumbs up but Flo shook her head vigorously and pointed to the surface.

 _Oh, she means go up._ Beca waited a few more seconds to finish sealing the Corridor, then started to swim upward. She instantly grew concerned when Flo took her by the arm and helped her swim faster. _What's she in a hurry for?_

When they broke the surface, Luke and Jesse were already at the edge of the water to give her a hand. Jesse wore an anxious expression on his face while holding a finger against his ear. "Chloe's in trouble—" was all Beca needed to hear from him before immediately flying off.

* * *

Aubrey scanned the skies in a panic as she continued running toward the area where she had first spotted something rising rapidly against the buildings. She ducked into an alleyway and then a few more, hoping that her directional instincts were right. Once she got through her shortcut, she was relieved to find herself on the same street as the demonic Heartless crushing Chloe on its way upward, past the tallest building in sight.

 _Where the hell is it bringing her?_

"Beca—goddammit!" Aubrey cursed into her earpiece, after receiving no reply for the umpteenth time. She suspected that Beca was formulating a plan of attack with Luke, completely unaware that her girlfriend was…

About to be turned into a pancake.

Aubrey's neck started to cramp as she stared, watching the Heartless make a sharp U-turn in the sky, apparently having reached a satisfactory height above the skyscrapers, and plummet to the ground, keeping a vice-like grip on Chloe.

"Fuck!" Aubrey resumed her sprint and clenched her fists helplessly, as if cursing her electric powers for not being any help in this situation. Then she skidded to a sudden stop and quickly scanned her surroundings for help. From what she could estimate from her run, she was maybe half a mile from the others. Before she had separated from him, Jesse was knocking back Heartless by the river; Beca was out of reach and out of sight; and based on their last check-in the Gamma team was still in the downtown area conducting rescue ops. With a sinking feeling, Aubrey realized that nobody but she could get to Chloe in time—

"Hey!"

She whipped around and saw the person she least expected to see in a dire situation like this: Bumper Allen. But, despite being the last person Aubrey would want to ask help from, he was also the _only_ person she could ask. Forgoing words in her haste, Aubrey pointed to the sky, where Chloe and the Heartless were picking up speed, with a good thousand feet left to pick up some more. And to his credit, Bumper's jaw dropped in legitimate concern.

"Jesus," he breathed, tossing aside the deep-dish pizza he had been eating and dusting his hands on his cargo shorts. "I can't—they're going too fast, I can't stop that!"

"Can you knock them off course and into… into…?" Aubrey looked around desperately for an alternative to smashing headfirst into the concrete.

"Hang on, there's Stacie—yo, LEGS!" Bumper cupped his hands around the sides of his mouth and yelled toward the end of the long street, where a slim, stringy figure was traveling through buildings.

Aubrey felt her heart leap into her throat and attributed that reaction to finally finding someone who could actually help. She locked eyes with the brunette from two blocks away and motioned upward pleadingly. Stacie followed her gaze and gave an identical reaction to Bumper's.

After a quick calculation, Stacie stretched her limbs and started climbing to the top of the nearest building, and once there she coiled her lower half first onto a stable enough structure, and then into a tight spring, readying herself to intercept them the same way she did with Beca all those months ago. The only difference was that Beca was in free fall, while the sadistic Heartless was accelerating to reach the ground as hard as possible. Catching something descending that quickly with her body would be immensely painful, but Stacie was confident that her dermal armor was strong enough to avoid a permanent damage.

In any case, she motivated herself with the thought that it was definitely _not_ as painful as Chloe's fate if she didn't do anything. Bracing herself for the impact, Stacie timed her leap and practically grabbed hold of entire buildings to avoid being dragged down. Luckily, there was a couple hundred feet of leeway from her body to the ground, but that didn't stop Stacie from wincing in pain as her belly stretched to absurd proportions.

The Heartless, however, was not that easily foiled. It surrounded itself in dark energy and powered through the contact with Stacie's impenetrable body. After only a few seconds, Stacie couldn't help herself and let go—but only because she saw someone who could do a better job suddenly appear on the roof of the building across the street from hers.

Not wasting any time for recovery after recoiling to a normal size, Stacie shot her arm down toward Bumper and wrapped it securely around the toad-boy. She looked across the street and nodded to Lilly before retracting her arm with a snap and pulling Bumper forcefully off the ground. He was sent him flying in a straight, upwardly diagonal path that would once again intersect with Chloe and the Heartless' path downward.

After receiving Stacie's signal, Lilly stepped off the ledge of the skyscraper and began her own descent downward, accelerating at the normal thirty-two feet per second, per second. Bumper, catching onto the plan in mid-air, perfectly timed and released a vile, acidic glob of spit toward the Heartless' face when he was in range, causing the demon to throw its head back in agony and annoyance. Bumper then quickly tried to tug Chloe out of its loosened grip with his tongue, as Stacie's arm had missed by an inch, but they both knew that it would be too difficult; the point was only to get them to separate just enough so that—

Lilly, having reached a high enough velocity on her own descent, conjured a portal right below her and another one simultaneously in the space Bumper had made between Chloe and the Heartless. She fell into the former and shot out of the latter, using the force from her lithe mass and gravitational acceleration to violently kick the Heartless away from Chloe, leaving the redhead free-falling into Beca's arms.

* * *

Beca swooped down and gently lowered Chloe onto the ground where Benji and the rest of the Gamma team were waiting, having finished with their own mission objective. As soon as Chloe was in a safe and secure position, Benji knelt down beside her and said, "Requesting permission to touch your body for medical—"

"Permission granted, Benji! She can't exactly speak for herself right now!" said Aubrey, crouching from the sidelines worriedly with her hands on her knees. "Just help her!"

"I'm okay," Chloe coughed out weakly. Her voice was quiet and strained from the effort to appear better than she felt. "Just… my chest and…" She winced and started turning to her side. Multiple pairs of arms reached out to help her, but she growled them away. "I can do it! Just fix my back… please, Benji."

Benji nodded and immediately went to work, which was difficult to do without knowing exactly what the damage was, but he guessed from Aubrey's brief recounting of events that Chloe's torso was crushed by a Heartless. He examined and pressed his fingers firmly all over the areas he suspected were injured, and was relieved to conclude that, against all odds, Chloe had suffered was no internal bleeding nor any broken bones. She was badly injured by normal human standards, but fortunately Benji could easily deal with them—and not any worse, as he would not have had the energy left after the numerous civilians he came across during the rescue operations.

"It's a good thing you're really fit," he complimented. "It makes you easier to heal."

Chloe's lips jerked in what was meant to be a smile, but from his position (with Chloe lying on her front, facing in his direction) Benji couldn't help but notice that her eyes were hard and unfocused. He briefly considered a head injury but immediately changed his mind when Chloe rose to her feet and brushed off the dirt from her suit, seemingly good as new.

Benji watched as she walked away from everyone, though followed closely by Beca, whom he heard apologizing profusely. Catching himself staring and not wanting to intrude on the couple, he turned away to find Aubrey talking to a group of unfamiliar mutants. He had heard the news about unregistered mutants starting uprisings—and was even told that the perpetrators of the recent attack _were_ unregistered mutants—and, logically, anyone who was _not_ at Barden was unregistered. But from the looks of the people Aubrey, and now even Jesse, were talking to, there seemed to be much more going on underneath the surface than just the black and white distinctions.

* * *

Beca couldn't bear staying in the cabin the entire ride back to Barden, so she crept into one of the recuperating rooms of the jet and sulked in the corner. She could still feel the aftershocks of her chest tightening painfully upon hearing Jesse's words as she emerged from the river. But even so, it was nothing compared to the feeling of having her heart completely stop when she finally saw Chloe in the clutches of a demonic Heartless, falling to the earth faster than even she could fly.

Beca looked down at her arms, which still felt the weight of Chloe's weakened body when she had caught her after Stacie, Bumper, and Lilly's ingenious plan to separate Chloe from the Heartless. And although Chloe had seemed fine (and had verbally insisted that she was) after the rescue, Beca noticed the definite change in her aura. Chloe was upset and hurt, and Beca instantly felt guilty for it; she never should have left her—although the second she thought that she knew Chloe would only have been angrier with her. At the very least, Beca should have noticed sooner that Chloe hadn't followed her to the battlefield like she promised.

 _I should have kept an eye on her,_ Beca thought miserably. _I should've put on that damn earpiece when Aubrey told me to._

Beca groaned into her hands. Chloe had the right to be mad at her—to yell at her for neglecting her duty and for letting things get as out-of-hand as they did. But what made Beca feel worse was the very fact that Chloe _didn't_ yell; she barely even communicated with Beca beyond the dull "I'm okay" she supplied after the whole ordeal.

So, feeling incredibly ashamed and guilty, Beca had retreated into the farthest corner of the jet from Chloe. She was so depressed that she didn't even have the spirit to inform Aubrey about Luke's newly developed power—though she assumed Jesse would have done so anyway. She also didn't get to thank Stacie and the others for saving Chloe—even though it was admittedly just a bitter reminder of yet another instance of her failure to do just that.

There weren't a lot of things in the world that could make Beca Mitchell cry, but the combined feelings of a fear of losing Chloe (in more ways than one) and the helplessness over what to do about it came very close. A part of her chastised herself— _See, this is what I meant about having your emotions tied to some other person!_ —while the wiser part assured her that these feelings will pass.

Beca quickly blinked the wetness out of her eyes when she heard a soft knock on the door. After a polite pause, Jesse popped his head in. "Hey."

"Hey," greeted Beca, trying to sound her normal self. "Shouldn't you be flying this plane?"

"We put it on auto-pilot when we're not in a hurry," he said with a smile, before adding heavily, "How're you holding up?"

Beca didn't bother lying. "I feel like shit."

Jesse nodded sympathetically. "Sulking isn't going to fix that, though. You should talk to her."

"I plan to. I'm just... preparing myself, you know, for that look of complete _hate_ on her face when I do." Beca took a deep breath but her voice still broke slightly when she asked him, "You think she'll break up with me?"

"C'mon, Becs," Jesse clasped her shoulders reassuringly, "Chloe is head over heels _in love_ with you, okay? She may be a bit mad at you now but it won't last long. You've got nothing to worry about!"

"A _bit_ mad? She wouldn't even look at me, dude."

Jesse waved a hand carelessly, utterly convinced that his best friend was blowing things way out of proportion. "That's just cause she knows that when she does, she'll lose all her resolve to stay mad at you," he reasoned. "Now, come on. Stop sulking! We're landing in a few minutes and, unless you want to have nightmares tonight, you should clear the air with Chloe before the day ends."

Taking confidence from the fact that Jesse had seen nearly every romantic movie ever made and so he knew all their clichés and how to avoid them, Beca took his advice and caught up to Chloe as the students filed out of the jet. She held her back in the hangar where they would have a better chance of privacy once everyone was gone. Jesse gave her an encouraging smile on his way out, dragging a suspicious Aubrey by the arm with him. And once the elevator took the last of the students away, Beca apologized for everything she felt guilty for. The problem was—

"Seriously?" said Chloe, putting her hands on her hips and narrowing her eyes. "You think I'm mad because you lost track of _babysitting_ me?"

Beca was taken aback by Chloe's sharp response. "What? No, that's not how I—"

"Contrary to what you might think, my world doesn't revolve around _you_ , Beca."

 _Whoa, low blow!_

"Hey!" Beca cried indignantly. "What the hell are you snapping at _me_ for? I'm the one here caring about your fucking feelings—"

Beca knew that once curse words came into play, any fight would begin snowballing downhill.

"Oh, you _care_ about my feelings?" said Chloe, her voice getting louder and angrier with every word. "That's rich, coming just a few hours after we talked about this!"

Beca gaped at her, half wondering and worrying if Chloe had hit her head and lost her mind, making her lash out irrationally. Beca nevertheless searched her mind for what Chloe meant by 'just a few hours after we talked about this.'

"Wait, you mean the whole 'me being too protective' thing?" she said. "You're _still_ on that? Look, I already told you I won't feel bad for—"

Chloe cut her off with a frustrated growl. "It's not _just_ that, Beca! You know what, this just proves that you really _don't_ understand how it makes me feel." Her voice quieted but it didn't lose its bite. "How it makes _me_ feel when I can't even go out as a civilian for some fucking _ice cream_ without getting treated like a dangerous mutant about to blow something up—and then to go on these missions as an _actual_ mutant and feel utterly useless when I…" She shook her head and took a deep, calming breath. "Can't you understand? I'm not normal enough for civilians, and I'm not mutant enough for you. I don't belong in either world."

Beca's shoulders slumped as the fight drained out of her. It tore her heart to see Chloe struggling with her identity, but the truth was that Beca was glad that Chloe wasn't 'mutant enough.' And it wasn't that she was rooting _against_ Chloe getting her powers back, but if Chloe was as powerful as she could theoretically be, then maybe it was for the best that she didn't develop past levitating pebbles. And, as skilled as she was at fighting in hand-to-hand combat, until the time came that she did master her powers—if that time would ever come at all—Chloe was objectively safer being treated as a civilian and _not_ getting involved in their missions.

She only wanted to keep the most important person in her life safe—was that so wrong?

"… But none of this will ever get through your stubbornly gallant head, Beca," Chloe continued with a mirthless chuckle. "Not as long as you keep seeing me that way."

Her throat suddenly dry, Beca asked—almost daring her to answer, "What way?"

Chloe's eyes met her and flashed with regret. After a long and heavy pause, "Good night, Beca," was all she said, clearly backing out of how she originally planned to end the conversation.

But the intention was not lost on Beca. She waited for Chloe disappear behind the metal doors of the elevator before she gripped the handle of a nearby trolley used to load things into the jet and threw it across the hangar.

* * *

Chloe leaned her back against the cold metallic walls of the elevator and watched as the doors slowly approached the center, only to be held open by a quick arm. She smiled politely as a trio of mewbies filed into the elevator, giving her awkward smiles.

She didn't have the energy to dispel their discomfort; it was the morning after her big fight with Beca and she had barely gotten any sleep last night, instead she only lay stiffly on her side, facing away from Fat Amy to not let her roommate notice as she cried herself to sleep. She had then rushed to the underground gym the minute she woke up to work through her feelings. She didn't mind it when the mewbies joined her a few minutes later, but she wasn't exactly starved for company either, so they did their workouts separately and mostly in silence.

Chloe dabbed at her neck with her towel, ignoring the indistinct muttering among the students as the elevator doors fully closed and they finally began to ascend.

"I watched you do your workout, Chloe," piped up the girl that Chloe only now noticed had sidled up to her.

It was Emily, buzzing with excitement as usual until she realized how her words came out. "Yikes, did that sound just as creepy to you as it did to me? I'm sorry—I just—you were really great in there," she stuttered, still smiling through her jitteriness. "I hope I get to be as good at hand-to-hand combat as you are someday."

Chloe responded with small smile. She didn't feel like pointing out to Emily that she was only _that_ good at combat techniques because, unlike her, she needed to compensate for not being able to harness her true powers. Chloe was maybe even a bit jealous of Emily; the younger girl had apparently breezed through power training ever since she arrived, according to both Aubrey and Charlene.

When the elevator doors dinged open, Chloe was surprised to see Beca waiting on the other side. Her heart leapt into her throat in anxiety and she briefly hoped that Beca was on her way down to the basement level and _not_ waiting for her. But that hope was extinguished when she saw that Beca wasn't in her athletic gear, but in her usual leather jacket and boots.

"Hey," she greeted Beca awkwardly as the other occupants of the elevator fled the scene as quickly as they could. Rumors spread quickly at the Barden mansion. "I thought you had class," she mumbled weakly, unsure why she was even engaging in small talk.

Beca shrugged and walked slowly alongside Chloe as they exited the hallway. "I was excited to come home to you," she replied with a grin.

Chloe hid her surprise behind an uncontrollable blush. Was Beca torturing her? Being so nice and sweet, and pretending nothing had happened the night before, when Chloe had made the dumbest remark of her life. "Beca, about last night..."

Beca's face fell and she cleared her throat awkwardly. "Oh. Yeah. About that…"

"I'm really sorry," Chloe said sincerely. "I was embarrassed over what happened to me in New York and pissed that I couldn't defend myself—"

Chloe slowed to a stop right before the stairs leading to the residential wing, but Beca took her by the forearm and jerked her thumb toward the door leading to the gardens. "Hey, how about a walk?" she said. "Outside? We can talk more about... this."

Chloe thought about it, but ultimately shook her head to decline. "I can't. I need to shower and get ready for class—"

"Okay. Your room then?" nodded Beca.

Chloe looked at her curiously. There was plenty time to talk after school but Chloe sensed a certain urgency coming off of Beca and felt somewhat glad that she was eager to make up. So she nodded and continued upstairs, with Beca following closely behind.

The residential wing was strikingly different from the rest of the mansion. Whereas, to a visitor, the Barden Institute was a model boarding school, the residential wing, like a college dorm, constantly buzzed with life and activity.

"Good morning, Chloe!" Jessica greeted brightly as she exited her room carrying a large laundry bag. She deposited the bag into a trolley outside her bedroom and turned to Chloe. "Do you need some laundry done?"

"Yeah, actually, I do. Thanks!" Chloe smiled gratefully, taking the trolley and pushing it a few paces up the hallway and into her room. "Amy's at school. Something about a misunderstanding with the registrar's office," she explained when she noticed Beca glancing at Fat Amy's corner of the room. She gathered her change of clothes and turned toward the en suite bathroom. "Give me twenty minutes then we can—"

The sharp pain at the back of her head lasted only a fraction of a second before everything went dark.

* * *

 **Response to Reviews:**

 **Another Random Human** (Mar. 5) - I'm glad you liked the previous chapter! :)

 **Psychic Guest** (Mar. 5) - Yay, thank you! I'd take a cockblocked Bechloe over what happened in this chapter, though. :( HAHA! Don't worry, I don't think I'll ever be that explicit with Jaubrey. Oh, yeah, I made it look like someone was sneaking through their secret files but it was just Charlene 'grading' their work. And she just entered a blank to skip having to read those parts – the consequence of poor programming design by Barden's IT company haha. I'm glad you picked up on the different styles! I was worried people wouldn't appreciate it. (I personally love Beca's style.) I had to show a kickass version of Chloe to preemptively make up for taking her down in this chapter. :( This chapter has another confrontation with Luke's group but... who are behind the others? _Are_ there even other rogue mutants? Tan-tun-tuuun.

 **Maggie** (Mar. 5 and Mar.19) - Thank you! And I'm so sorry for taking so long to respond to your other review! If you're still seeking advice on how to start, mine is that it's always helpful to "begin with the end in mind." Know what you want to achieve, what you want the reader to feel, etc. and then structure the story around that. :) It also helps to avoid continuity errors and plotholes. Feel free to send me a Private Message anytime!

 **xcombixgirlx** (Mar. 6) - Aww if you felt bad for Bechloe then, imagine how you feel now! Hahahaha I would love if they did that!

 **Guest** (Mar. 6) - Thank you for your review! That's an interesting way to group your readings. I knew that things would change drastically after the MRA so I tried to ease into it. Funny you mentioned Young Justice because it is one of the bases of this story (most obvious in the team names) and, coincidentally, I also didn't like how they wrote in new characters when I had just started to really like the original team. But I didn't let adding the rest of the PP characters bother me as much because, well, this is FanFiction and they are an established cast already haha. Season 3 is admittedly complicated – to write and to read – and so were Stacie and Luke's reasons for leaving. I hope you check back in after Season 3 is done! :)


	24. The Night Descending

**A/N:** Holy mother. I'll save my apologies for being almost two months absent, since this chapter might make you sick of reading this story anyway. At 15,500+ story-words, this is probably the _longest_ (non-finale) chapter of them all – and it doesn't even have any action! It has a lot of scene switches (I was visualizing it as a movie) and, while I ordered them as chronologically as possible, they sometimes overlap for style/dramatic reasons. I also introduce one of the most complicated things to ever introduce in any science fiction, which you will see later on.

So here is a **reading guide** in case you get confused: The chapter is split into 3 parts: History and Mystery, The Aftermath, and The Night Descending. H&M occurs simultaneously with majority of the events of the **previous** chapter (the battle in NYC). TA and TND happen on the same day but with a couple of hours between them.

Good luck and thanks for reading!

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Four: The Night Descending**

* * *

 **Part I: History and Mystery**

* * *

"Have you ever wondered why nobody talks about the older generation of mutants? After all, the existence of people with superhuman abilities has been known since the eighties; yet, when the video of the Barden students leaked, it seemed that people still haven't warmed up to the idea in the past twenty-four years. Have you ever wondered what happened to mutant awareness since then?"

Justin shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his hand halfway back from a bowl of nuts on Jack's table. "Uh, yes, sir, I _have_ been wondering. That's kind of why I'm here... And kind of why I asked."

"I know, I know. I just wanted a dramatic opening line."

Gail rolled her eyes affectionately as Jack moved away from the window through which he had been staring out, scotch in hand. "But you understand my point, right?" he said. "Even before the incident at St. John's Island, people _have_ _known_ that uniquely-abled individuals existed, but they didn't _understand_ what—or how—they knew. And the fact that you're only now asking us about the first generation—or, at least, the ones that were first _discovered_ —shows how little care society has given them."

"Actually, sir," Justin spoke up timidly, worried about the impression he'd be making by contradicting his boss, "the Superhuman Registration Act is evidence that society _did_ care—"

"Ah, yes, of course," nodded Jack. "The SRA, the first ever response to the supposed 'threat' of superhuman beings—yadda, yadda, yadda. Tell me, what else have you heard about it?"

Justin jutted his bottom lip out thoughtfully, realizing that there was actually very little he knew about the controversial law, despite being a self-proclaimed fan of the mutant race. "Only that it was signed into law in 1987 to appease public hysteria over the discovery of—well, to use the old term— _superhuman beings_."

"Accurate, except for two counts, Justin," said Gail, rising from her desk and walking over to clarify, "'Hysteria' and 'discovery.'"

Justin looked between the two adults and frowned. "So people didn't actually _know_ about mutants back then? Then why was the bill even written in the first place?"

"Oh, few people _did_ know, but mutants were _discovered_ much sooner," said Gail.

Jack explained, "The official party line was exactly what you said, word for word, but among those of us in-the-know," he gestured to himself and his wife, "the government had known about superhumans for around four years by the time the bill was proposed."

" _Four y_ —? Wait, you two were a part of an _actual_ government cover-up?!" Justin gasped excitedly.

Gail shook her head. "Not quite. We ourselves only found out about the government's four-year head start _years_ later when..." she hesitated and exchanged looks with her husband. "When AMG had gained prominence as a technological research firm," she finished. "And, to be honest, it didn't seem suspicious to us when they told us. The so-called hysteria was bound to happen anyway so we thought the government was just doing its due diligence during that four-year gap to make sure that superhumans _were_ a viable threat."

"That was our twenty-something gullible minds at work," Jack commented with a grim smile.

"But after the MRA was signed and people were misquoting the old SRA all over the news, Jack and I got curious and decided to investigate what _really_ happened back then," said Gail, pacing back and forth thoughtfully. "We looked into the history of the first bill and what happened after it was passed. The most notable detail was that, apparently, the SRA was proposed by—"

"Senator Robert Edwards," answered Justin. "He's the same guy, right?"

"That's right. Any guesses as to why he's been so involved with the issue?"

"He's a mutant, too?" Justin asked hopefully.

Jack chuckled. "That would be an interesting twist, but as far as we know he's just a dick about it."

"His involvement is more, uh, _material_ in nature," said Gail.

"Oh." Justin scowled in disappointment. "So he just got paid off." He paused, thinking back to what little he knew about politics. "But who would have an agenda with superhumans in the 80's?"

"Do the words 'military-industrial-congressional complex' ring any bells?"

* * *

Pieter swatted at a persistent mosquito as he followed Kommissar through the thick vegetation that had grown through cracks in the stone pathway they were following. When the fly wouldn't die he growled in annoyance and phased into a smaller version of his golem form to protect himself from its bites. Kommissar turned to him and raised an eyebrow.

" _Are you sure this is the place?_ " Pieter asked in a deep, rumbling voice that replaced his usual sneer.

" _Yes,_ " replied Kommissar. " _It is faint, but it is the same one. Can you not feel it?_ "

" _It is faint,_ " he agreed with a grunt.

They felt something stir in the otherwise quiet jungle and slowly turned toward the mouth of the moss-covered stone corridor off to the side. Out of the darkness shuffled an ancient, bearded man in mustard-yellow rags holding a walking stick. He stared at them blankly, as though neither expecting them nor surprised to see them there.

While Pieter fanned a hand unsubtly in front of the stump where his nose would be, Kommissar addressed the monk in his native tongue. " _Tell us what happened here._ "

* * *

"So the military has been involving itself with mutants ever since," Justin said thoughtfully. "Let me guess—they tried using them as weapons back then, too?"

Jack nodded. "Surprisingly, they were the first to see the usefulness of society's weirdoes."

"Well, 'weirdoes' might not be the right term to use for those people," corrected Gail, "considering they were somewhat _revered_ back then."

Justin frowned in confusion. "If mutants weren't known, how could they be revered?"

"During a brief period in the eighties, there was a certain fad for 'world superlatives,'" explained Jack. "You've probably seen some of the old ads—World's _Strongest_ Man, World's _Fastest_ Man—"

"Or woman," interjected Gail.

"Even circus clairvoyants and seers, and daredevils and thrill-seekers were looked into. Basically, the military took their first pick of individuals to study from _these_ kinds of people," explained Jack. "They were determined to develop 'superhuman' soldiers that could _surpass_ what normal humans can do, so naturally they went for those who already have achieved that. And these people were an easy target; superhumans were all over the entertainment section of papers—and even on TV," he added as an afterthought.

Justin took a moment to digest the origin of the people he so admired. It was, to say the least, a huge disappointment, largely because he could not compare the impressive mutants he knew or heard of from the Barden Institute with someone out of a _Ripley's Believe It or Not_ episode.

"But... are you sure?" he said hesitantly. "I mean a lot of _those_ people seem kind of…" He made a gesture expressing his discontent. " _Off_ , if you know what I mean."

"We had the same reservations, too, and certainly not _all_ of those that were approached by the military were _actual_ mutants by our current standards," assured Gail. "But you know how, like all fads over the decades that fizzle out, there's always that one 'Where Are They Now?' segment on the news? Well, we thought we'd do the same with the 80's superhumans: a lot of them went back to their normal lives or failed at some follow-up claim to fame—but those were the _easy_ ones to find."

"Which likely means there was nothing mutant about them after all, given the controversy of the SRA," concluded Jack. "So we tried digging deeper to find those who could actually _be_ mutants, but it wasn't as easy as it sounds."

"Even with stretching the limits of what we could do _legally_ ," said Gail, "and our friendly ties to the military right now, we still found nothing. No names, no record."

Justin slumped dejectedly. He had hoped that, with their connections and resources, Jack and Gail would have gotten much farther than a dead end.

"Although, lucky for us, we aren't the only ones looking," continued Gail. "We came cross this nondescript site in the darkest corners of the Internet run by some mutant 'admirer' who had been asking the same questions we were only beginning to ask and, judging by the rate of his updates, he was discovering things _faster_ than we were."

Justin perked up hopefully but took note of Gail's use of the past tense. "I'm guessing there's bad news though?"

"According to his last post, he was going to explore the Superhuman Registration Act and the people involved, just like you are doing now," said Jack. "That was over twelve weeks ago. Considering he had been posting updates consistently every week before that…"

"You think he's been... taken in?" Justin said the last part in a conspiratorial whisper.

"We're being optimistic," Jack shrugged, exchanging looks with his wife. "Whoever he is, he's smarter than the average computer geek because he made sure that none of his posts could ever be traced to a single location. Even his website is virtually untraceable."

"And, as much as we'd want to, we can't ask Cynthia Rose to do something illegal and hack into private and secure servers just to find this guy," Gail said wistfully. "AMG has already involved her in too many of our shady dealings over the years."

"Unfortunately, that also means the trail runs cold for now," said Jack. "We believe that this writer was investigating other information that link to events before the SRA was enacted when he stopped posting."

"Can't you just pick up where he left off?" asked Justin.

"We'd love to follow suit but the narrative is being changed right in front of our eyes." Gail pointed to a magazine on the table. It was an exposé on the mutant issue, one of the hundreds that have been published over the past few months. Justin had seen so many of them and their repeated, unoriginal, and unsubstantiated reporting that his eyes just glazed over whenever he came across them on the newsstands.

"Don't they all just say the same thing?" he said. "They're all getting their information from, like, one source and just embellish the details."

"Yes, but when you say something over and over enough times, it starts to seem true," Jack said ominously.

"In any case, the only true facts are that there was a law called the Superhuman Registration Act of 1987 which was 'the government's response to the threat of superhuman beings,'" recited Gail. "And that, as far as old records suggest, only a handful of mutants ever registered. The execution and implementation of the law never became an issue since months later the SRA was repealed—a fact that the media doesn't seem to understand—and the public eventually lost interest in these so-called 'superhumans.'"

"Even though they were never really sure they existed," snorted Jack.

"How could they _lose interest_?" Justin asked, bewildered. "This is, like, a comic book story come to life!"

"Because none of the possible dangers detailed in the SRA was ever reported," Gail answered simply. "Yes, the issue was controversial and attention-grabbing, but things got boring when people could see no actual, physical mutant to channel all their concern toward. That's how the first attempt to alert the world of the existence of superhumans eventually devolved into what people came to believe was one, giant overreaction. Or worse, a hoax. And surprisingly, the government was fine with either story."

"But when something gets swept under the rug _that_ quickly, without much pushback from those that started it, people are bound to get suspicious," said Jack, rubbing his chin conspiratorially. "Conspiracy theorists had a field day in the aftermath of the SRA; they truly believed that there were mutants among us and they suspected that something had gone wrong in the government's plan to 'out' them—"

"Wait, wait, wait. You're following the lead of _conspiracy theorists_?" Justin said skeptically.

Jack shrugged once again. "They were right, weren't they? If we weren't told about the operations ourselves, following their theories would have led us the to same conclusion anyway. I mean, think about it: most common conspiracies—Area 51, Roswell—are just top-secret military operations, right?"

"But the point is, these conspiracy theories about keeping mutants hidden against their will were _everywhere_ during the months following the take-down of the SRA," said Gail. "Sure, by then, not many people _cared_ about it anymore, but imagine how it could help shape the discussion _today_ if people knew the truth about how mankind dealt with the mutant issue the first time.

"But instead, what is shaping the debate today are _these_ reports," she pointed down at the magazine with disgust, "claiming that the some mutants had avoided registering in 1987 and hid, causing the spread of the mutant gene. But hid from what, and _to do_ what? See, it all fuels the intrigue of what have mutants could have been up to since the end of the SRA, instead of what was _done_ to them during. It pulls focus away from the legal process and de-humanizes mutants."

Justin's heart raced with apprehension. He had been too busy dismissing the papers and tabloids as garbage to realize their true effect on the mutant issue. "But why don't they release the records—" he began, but seeing the looks on Jack and Gail's faces, he immediately knew that they weren't going to find any document related to the SRA from traditional sources. "Holy shit. But then… we might never find out what truly happened to the first mutants, and that means it's probably impossible to track them down—let alone get their DNA!"

Jack nodded slowly. "Sorry to spoil your research, Justin, but we knew from the beginning that it was bound to be difficult without much data."

Justin gulped, wondering why he of all scientists in the country had been chosen to work on a project that neither its financiers nor one of its own members even desired to see finished. "There has to be something," he said hopefully. "There has to be some other record. You've got to keep looking, you've gone this far already—"

"It's not exactly something we have the luxury of time for, Justin," Gail said apologetically. "We still have AMG's normal operations to run, not to mention handling Barden's reports to Congress, Homeland Security, the CIA, and the DOD."

Jack shook his head. "And if we were ever able to help you find the first mutants, you'd have already been done combing through their DNA by now."

"So I'm going back to a dead end job of isolating protein chains?" Justin asked dejectedly.

"Is there really no faster way?" asked Jack, at the same time Gail's cellphone rang and she walked away to answer it.

"At the rate CR and I are going, we'd have to test every single mutant to find a chemical suppressor for each of them," replied Justin. "Not exactly helpful against the _unregistered_ mutants."

Jack sighed and rubbed his chin. "I can still work that into a report for the agencies and get you a check," he offered helpfully but Justin waved him off.

"I'm not doing this for the money, sir," he said. "I just want to help mutants live in peace with the rest of mankind. I know Cynthia Rose doesn't agree with me on this, but I feel confident that making the public feel safe having mutants in their society is key to ending the discrimination."

Jack smiled appreciatively. Then he was silent for a moment, thinking. "Okay, I have an idea," he said in a low voice so Gail couldn't hear them from her desk. "Do you really think tracing history back to the first generation will help that much?"

Justin nodded. "If even just _one_ of those mutants had a child, both sets of DNA might contribute _a lot_ of information about how the gene manifests itself. And even if it doesn't, the results would then support an environmental case. In either scenario, once the exhibiting factor is discovered, we could move forward with our research and eventually come up with a counteracting chemical to temporarily stun its metabolism."

Jack hummed thoughtfully and glanced across the room at his wife, who was still on the phone, looking out the window. "Are you willing to, you know, tiptoe over the legal line for that information?"

Justin swallowed and didn't answer immediately. "How much over the line would I have to go?"

"Track down the guy running that website," Jack said in a low whisper. "My gut tells me he hasn't been silenced yet, but I can't dig too much into it without alerting those who might want him silenced." Jack gave him a look, and Justin recalled the many agencies Barden was reporting to and realized how close they actually were to the people who were most likely behind the SRA in the first place. "But you, my friend, are just a name on our payroll. You might get away with it."

* * *

" _CR?_ "

"I think you were right to doubt that unregistered mutants were behind the attack," said Cynthia Rose, crouching down to sift through the rubble with a gloved hand while her other hand pressed the phone to her ear. "I'm at the explosion site right now."

" _Alone?_ " asked Gail, surprised. " _Isn't it sealed off and crawling with cops?_ "

"Do you hear any sirens? There isn't even a bomb squad in sight—which makes things even more suspicious."

"More _suspicious?_ "

"Yeah. I couldn't find any fragments of an explosive device," she said. "I swabbed some residue but I'll need to head back to the lab to confirm its type. So far though it looks like your standard bomb… only without all the evidence."

" _Then how are you so sure it didn't come from an unregistered mutant?"_

"Hello, I'm the explosives expert, remember?" Cynthia Rose sniffed the air and detected a metallic, oily smell. "I can't speak for every mutant but I'm pretty sure my explosions come from concentrated energy, not chemicals."

" _So, what, you think this is a terrorist attack?_

Cynthia Rose got on her feet and sighed. "I don't know, but I have a bad feeling about this. It's too similar to the attack in Chicago last week."

" _I agree… Well, I'll get in touch with some of AMG's forensic clients. Maybe they can help the investigation._ "

"All right. And also," Cynthia Rose scratched her nose uncomfortably, "I ran into Stacie earlier."

There was a pause on the other end. " _CR, that doesn't really help their case—"_

"They're helping Aubrey and the others deal with the Heartless by the East River," Cynthia Rose defended quickly.

" _Are they all there? Did you see Chloe?_ "

"Stacie and I didn't exactly bump into each other on the battlefield. I found her in an evacuated federal building hacking into some computer."

" _What?! But that's—"_

"Illegal? Yeah, I think she's aware of that."

" _Well, now this_ really _doesn't look good… What was she looking for?"_

"Records, I think," answered Cynthia Rose, getting up to leave the explosion site. She walked over to her motorcycle and looked up and down the street, surprised that there were still no authorities sent to investigate. "She was looking into an agency called the GSA. Any idea what that might be?"

" _The General Services Administration?_ " Gail sounded surprised. _"Are you sure?"_

"Yeah, why? What do they do?"

" _Nothing exciting, really. They basically support other agencies through procurement and real estate management."_

Cynthia Rose frowned. "What would Stacie need from their records?"

" _My guess? Whatever it is, it must have something to do with undermining the MRA."_

* * *

 **Part II: The Aftermath**

* * *

"They're blaming _us_!?"

"No," replied Luke, dropping the newspaper in the center of the table and sitting down as the group gathered around. "Not yet at least."

Bumper unfolded the bottom half of the paper and pointed his stubby finger at it, "Our faces are all over the front page!"

"Luke's right," murmured Stacie, speed-reading the article. "They just report that we were there during the attacks, but the investigation is still ongoing and they haven't officially named suspects yet."

"It still looks like blaming to me," shrugged Alice.

"Check the editorial," Tommy said suddenly, wheeling over to them from his own desk. Stacie turned the pages and they all found themselves looking at a graphic editorial cartoon depicting the President's balls in the hands of a mutant 'apologist.' "Well, they're clearly blaming us _here_ ," she said dryly.

"They're being careful not to make it seem like the government is attacking mutants," explained Tommy. "They want civilians to demand action. It was artificial then, it's artificial now."

Bumper frowned, trying to understand Tommy's train of thought. "So… we _are_ being blamed?"

Tommy sighed and turned to the front page again. "Look," he said. "Look at these pictures. They don't look like the work of some random pedestrian with a camera, do they?"

Bumper bent over the newspaper. "You're right… I look _good_ in this one."

"Ooh! So do I," agreed Alice, her wings fluttering happily.

Tommy rolled his eyes. "That's not what I meant, you dimwits." He pointed to the photo of Luke, Alice, and Flo gathered by the river. "From the angle of this shot, the person had to be taking it from a high-rise."

"So?"

"The nearest high-rise was over a hundred yards away," Stacie murmured thoughtfully.

"Exactly." Tommy leaned back in his chair satisfactorily. "Who carries around a camera with a zoom lens that could snap close-up pictures _this_ well from that distance?"

Alice shrugged. "Photographers? I mean it _is_ New York City."

"Could have been perverts, too," Bumper said, and then added, "I mean it _is_ New York City."

Tommy rolled his eyes and swiveled back to his computer. "I've been telling you guys since day one: a government conspiracy is afoot."

"And we've been telling _you_ since day one: prove it, and _then_ we'll talk," said Stacie.

"Believe me, I'm trying," Tommy mumbled back as he went back to tying rapidly on his computer.

After everyone dispersed, Stacie moved around the table over to Luke, who was staring thoughtfully into his makeshift Newton's cradle. She was getting used to his increasingly broody nature, but she still missed the suave, slightly cocky guy he used to be.

"We shouldn't have gone to New York," he said quietly when Stacie sat across him. "I should have realized after Houston and Chicago that we were walking into a trap."

Stacie raised an eyebrow. "I _know_ you don't mean that," she said pointedly. "You're too noble to pass up an opportunity to help. It's not your fault that nobody recognizes it _as_ help."

"But was it worth getting us in this situation? In the four months we've been running from the MRA, we've done nothing to ease the tension between mutants and non-mutants. If anything, we made it _worse_."

"If Tommy's right, this isn't entirely our fault," Stacie said reassuringly. "And, hello, you're forgetting one thing we _have_ accomplished—this." She gestured around the small warehouse they were currently hiding in.

Over by the corner, Bumper and Alice were still admiring their pictures on the newspaper while across from them Flo was demonstrating to Unicycle how to properly walk on his hands. Tommy was proudly explaining whatever he was doing to a curious brunette, and Lilly was, as usual, hanging upside down from the rafters. The rest of their crew were comfortably chatting in the corner or eating.

"It's cheesy, I know, but we've achieved what we set out to do in the first place, didn't we? We gave people who couldn't, or wouldn't, register a place to call home," said Stacie. "Can you imagine what it would be like if each of us had to go through it alone?"

"You're right," smiled Luke. "That is cheesy."

Stacie shoved him on the shoulder. "Shut up. And don't worry about the MRA," she added, "Tommy's one step closer to finding those SRA documents."

As if on cue, Tommy called out to them. "Uh… guys? You're not going to _believe_ this."

* * *

Beca turned the doorknob and winced at the uncharacteristic but progressively more regular noise that greeted her once she pushed the front doors of the mansion open fully. "Remember a few months ago when we'd come home to a foyer that _wasn't_ littered with juveniles?" she asked Jesse rhetorically.

"Ah, what peaceful times," he agreed, closing the doors behind them and grimacing at the gaggle of girls giggling near them.

"Oh, get over yourselves," scoffed Aubrey, her arrival instantly clearing the foyer of the loitering teenagers. "You two weren't any better than them a year ago."

Beca smirked at the blonde. "So you got put in charge of babysitting, huh?"

Aubrey sighed and rolled her eyes. " _And_ extracurricular drop-offs. You know, I'm starting to think there's a downside to accepting more students."

"Well, that's the MRA's fault," shrugged Beca. "And, hey, I distinctly remember _someone_ telling me to look on the bright side. And I did. For instance, we don't have to pay for _anything_ anymore. We could just fill out a request form and say it's an operating cost."

"Like that twelve-thousand dollar mixing board you ordered last week?" smirked Jesse. "I'd love to see how that counts as 'training equipment.'"

Aubrey scowled at Beca. "The American people's tax dollars were used to pay for your act of fraud, Beca. Also, _AMG_ pays for that—you know, the company owned by your _girlfriend_ 's parents."

Beca's good spirits sank at the mention of Chloe and the word 'girlfriend.' She still wasn't sure what to make of their argument the night before, since it had ended earlier than it was meant to with Chloe walking away.

" _Not as long as you keep seeing me that way."_

Beca understood what Chloe meant the moment the words came through her lips: As long as Chloe was her girlfriend, Beca was never going to be okay putting her life in danger. _But was that reason enough to want to break up?_ Beca had thought angrily, frustrated to the point of denting the hangar's wall with a trolley.

She had then spent the rest of the night on the roof of the mansion to cool off, which took quite a while, before flying back to her room, exhausted from the day's events. She had ended up (not for the first time) oversleeping and missing her morning classes as well as her eight AM shift at the radio station. Already feeling like she had failed Chloe, Beca didn't want to experience failing school, too, so she dragged herself out of bed for her afternoon classes.

Almost twenty-four hours had passed since her fight with Chloe. They hadn't been away from each for this long since they got together, and Beca was feeling the effects of it. She was aching to see Chloe. Maybe even hold her if she would allow it. Kiss her if she could…

Her look of pitiful longing must have shown because Aubrey quickly backtracked and apologized. "Oh, shit. I'm sorry, Beca. I assumed you two made up last night..."

Beca shook her head. "Made it worse actually."

Jesse put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Wanna talk about it?"

"Yeah… but not with you two, in front of a bunch of gossipy teenagers," said Beca, looking over Jesse's shoulder to the same gaggle of girls whispering and giggling from behind a pillar. "I'm gonna find Chloe and work this out with her… one way or another," she added under her breath.

Aubrey nodded her approval. "Good," she said. "I'm glad you're mature enough to swallow your pride and do the right thing."

Beca was halfway up the stairs before the words hit her. "Swallow my pride?" she repeated with a scowl thrown at Aubrey. "Why do you always assume _I'm_ the one who does something wrong?"

Aubrey merely shrugged. "You don't exactly have the best track record."

Beca rolled her eyes and continued flying up the steps. After a quick stop by her bedroom to drop her bag off, she made her way to Chloe's bedroom and knocked twice on the newly repaired door. After she received no answer, Beca knocked a few more times and called Chloe's name before letting herself in. Neither Chloe nor her Australian roommate was in the room, and their bathroom was empty, too. Beca promptly closed the door and headed to the most likely place she would find Chloe: the training rooms.

Beca wasn't oblivious to how hard Chloe had been pushing herself physically the past few months, and she was certain it had to do with Chloe's disappointing progress with her powers. As yet another gesture of care, Beca had tried speaking to her girlfriend about easing up on the combat training and give her body a rest… but Beca remembered that conversation ending abruptly with a heated make-out session after Chloe convinced her that her body was, in every sense of the word, _fine_.

Once underground, Beca took a quick peek through the observation windows of the training room and saw that it was empty, which wasn't unusual for a Friday afternoon. For good measure, she checked the simulation room as well.

Still no Chloe.

While trying to remember if Chloe had any 'outside plans' that day, Beca fished her phone out from her pocket and made her way up to an area with better signal reception. Deciding on the spacious kitchen, she spent half an hour sitting on a stool and composing an apologetic yet guiltless, casual yet firm, needy yet not-too-needy text:

 _'Hey.'_

Before Beca could think of something better to follow that up with, she felt a pair of eyes on the back of her neck. She spun around slowly and saw a doe-eyed brunette smiling brightly at her. "Uh… hi, Emily," she waved awkwardly, wondering why, and how long, the sixteen-year-old had been standing there. "Sorry, do we have a session today?"

Pink with excitement, Emily shook her head. "No, I just wanted to say hi, Beca… Wow. _Beca_. I don't think I ever called you by name before." Her face fell. " _Can_ I call you Beca? I don't know what else to call you though. I guess I could call you Miss Mitchell but I don't think—"

Beca cut off the girl's rambling with a light chuckle, "Beca's fine."

Emily seemed elated to hear that, but she hesitated before continuing. "I know I've been totally stalker-ish and creepy, but I just wanted to let you know that you are just the _coolest_. Like, ever. You're my mutant idol—my midol?"

Beca listened to Emily gush excitedly like a—well, like a teenaged girl. She was already used to Emily's overwhelming reverence, but she had assumed it was directed at all the trainers, not just her. She wasn't sure how to react to it though.

"And everyone's really intimidated by you and I totally get it, you know, because you're the Chosen One with the Keyblade and you fought _a thousand_ Heartless by yourself—"

"Actually, I had help," interjected Beca. "And if I remember correctly, I got my ass handed to me _by_ those thousand Heartless so…"

Emily seemed unfazed by Beca's humility and kept marching on, as though she were letting a truckload off her chest. "Of course, for me, your greatest achievement would be saving Chloe from the depths of the Realm of Darkness. I mean, talk about _romantic_!"

Beca frowned deeply at the girl's misinformation. The last thing she wanted was to have to clarify to her (apparently) number one fan that, no, she did _not_ save Chloe from the Realm of Darkness; a group of dark, giant, mesh-wearing jerks did. But that _did_ remind Beca of her initial task.

"Hey, speaking of Chloe—have you seen her around the mansion anywhere?" she asked.

Emily made a thoughtful face before shaking her head. "Nope, not since you picked her up from training this morning. By the way, I'm really glad you two made up—"

"Hang on—what did you just say?" Beca froze. "I picked her up from training?"

"Yeah, you met us outside the elevator at around ten-forty-four, don't you remember? Funny story, I know the exact time because I tweeted about it—"

"Emily!" Aubrey called sharply, walking into the kitchen with her hands on her hips. Beca immediately dialed Chloe's number while Aubrey scolded the younger brunette. "You said you were just going to get a drink! We're going to have to beat the traffic now to make it to your choir practice—"

"Aubrey." Beca's heart pounded wildly in her chest and her mind was all over the place, but she pulled herself together because she knew Aubrey worked best when information was kept succinct. "Emily says she saw me this morning picking Chloe up from training but I wasn't even—and her phone goes to—" She clenched the device in her hand and resisted throwing it across the room in desperation. "— _fucking voicemail_!"

Emily's golden brown eyes widened in alarm and she looked between Aubrey and Beca in a panic. Aubrey took a beat to process everything, briefly considering whether she was the butt of a practical joke (it wouldn't be the first time) but, judging by both brunettes' expressions, Beca was dead serious.

Okay, calm down," she said, quickly taking charge. "Emily, are you _sure_ the person you saw was Beca?"

"Yes, of c—"

"Find Jesse and tell him he's doing the drop-offs. Don't tell him anything yet—there's no need to cause a panic until we're sure," commanded Aubrey. "Beca, come with me—and keep trying Chloe's cell."

They left the younger brunette, confused and worried, in the kitchen and marched toward the residential wing of the mansion.

"Hey, Chloe, call me. Please. I'm getting worried," Beca spoke into the microphone before turning back to Aubrey. "That was my fifth try. She wouldn't ignore me like this even if she was having class… or even if she was mad at me." A part of her actually hoped that she was wrong about the latter; she would gladly have Chloe ignoring her than be faced with the alternative.

The doorknob of Chloe and Amy's room rattled when Aubrey twisted it, which meant that someone was now inside. Beca held her breath, but her hope was in vain as it was Fat Amy, halfway through pulling up a pair of sweatpants, who answered. "Oh, it's you two," she greeted, her irritated expression dissolving once she opened the door.

"Have you seen Chloe today?" asked Aubrey, pushing past Fat Amy to examine Chloe's side of the room.

"I was at school all day dealing with a, uh, disagreement," the Australian replied evasively. "So, no, not since I woke up this morning. Why?"

"Bree, look." Beca crouched to her knees and pointed near the foot of Chloe's bed, where a phone lay partially hidden by the dust ruffle. "She had to have been here."

"Oh, so that's where that music was coming from. What happened, did ginger run away?" Fat Amy guessed humorously. "Gee, I didn't think I was _that_ bad of a roommate—"

"Doesn't this place have surveillance cameras or something?" Beca demanded from Aubrey. "Wasn't that the whole point of the MRA, to monitor us? Why didn't they catch anything suspicious and tell us?"

Fat Amy blinked. "Surveillance cameras? Whoa, relax, little B, maybe Chloe just went out for a run and forgot her phone. She's not exactly tech-savvy," she reasoned. "Take a chill pill."

"Amy, someone who looked just like me pretended to _be_ me this morning and talked to her," explained Beca, looking around the room for clues. "And Chloe wouldn't just disappear like this without telling anyone!"

"What do you mean someone pretended to _be_ you?"

"The cameras aren't allowed inside the bedrooms…" Aubrey said in answer to Beca's earlier question. Her tone suggested that she had an idea. "But they are in the hallways!" After a second of considering her options, Aubrey took out her own phone and dialed a number as Beca and Fat Amy poked their heads into the hallway to verify.

"Amy, can I borrow your laptop?" asked Aubrey, moving over to the study desk.

"Sure, but you twigs better start calling me by my proper name or I'll be having a fit."

Aubrey put the phone on speaker just as the call pushed through.

" _Why are you calling?_ " a familiar, husky voice greeted them.

"CR?" Beca said, surprised. They hadn't had contact with their former teammate in months.

" _Oh, hey, Beca! I thought I read Aubrey's name._ "

"You did. You're on speaker," said Aubrey. "Quick, can you help us access Barden's security footage from today?"

After a pause, Cynthia Rose replied, " _You know that's illegal, right?_ "

Aubrey didn't hesitate. "Yes, but can you?"

" _Of course. What is it for?"_

Beca exchanged quick a look with Aubrey. They didn't want to get Cynthia Rose into trouble, but they also desperately needed the information now if they wanted to find Chloe before the trail runs cold. "The less you know the better?" offered Beca.

" _Oh…kay._ _Just give me a minute to get hooked up…_ " They waited, listening to muffled sounds on her end, until she returned. _"Do you have a particular time and location? That might help me get in and out of there quickly._ "

"Second floor hallway of the residential wing—"

"Couple of minutes past ten-forty-four AM," added Beca.

" _Are you near a computer? I'm navigating the database right now. In the meantime, I'm gonna need you to run some code to connect to my Telnet server, are you ready?_ "

While Aubrey meticulously followed Cynthia Rose's instructions, Fat Amy sidled up to Beca and whispered, "Who is this magic lady on the other line?"

"Oh, right, you haven't met Cynthia Rose yet…" Beca drummed her fingers on the back of Aubrey's chair nervously, trying to focus on what was happening around her instead of what she was envisioning in her head. "She... she was part of our first team—the original Alpha team. She had a knack for creating her own weapons so after the MRA, she was recruited to help, uh, build _the_ weapon."

Fat Amy frowned. "You mean the _anti-mutant_ weapon?"

Beca nodded, pressing a finger to her lips to signal that they ought to be silent for Aubrey to focus.

" _Ay't, now save that as a media file and you should be able to play it._ "

"Got it," said Aubrey, and Beca and Fat Amy moved to stand on either side of her to watch the screen. "And CR—"

" _I know, I know—you're welcome._ "

"No—I mean, yes, thank you but… if this gets you in trouble—"

" _Don't worry. I was in and out of the database in two seconds and no one should know about the transfer. I better go, though. We shouldn't even be talking right now._ "

"Right. Thanks a lot, CR."

Cynthia Rose had given them an hour's worth of footage, and Aubrey dragged her fingers across the laptop's trackpad to fast-forward the recording. "Stop," Beca called unnecessarily; Aubrey had seen it, too.

Chloe came into view, followed closely by Beca—or someone who looked _exactly like_ Beca.

It was one thing to hear it from Emily, but a chill ran up and down Beca's spine upon seeing it herself and knowing that the figure on the screen wasn't actually her. And she knew this based on the most innocuous of things: she didn't own clothes like that. But Beca didn't blame Chloe for not noticing because, other than the fact that Chloe might have been too distracted by their fight, a leather jacket and skinny jeans weren't too far from Beca's own style.

The video had no audio, but they saw Chloe pause to exchange words with Jessica down the hall, and then push the laundry trolley into her room.

"I have a bad feeling about this…" murmured Fat Amy as the fake Beca closed the door behind them.

Less than a minute later, the door opened gingerly and Beca's doppelgänger reemerged, trolley-first, into the hallway. Judging by the effort she was giving to push it, a significant weight had been added to the laundry cart.

Beca's knuckles had turned white from gripping the back of Aubrey's chair so tightly. There were so many questions running through her mind—who _was_ this person? Why did they look exactly alike? What did she want with Chloe? Questions that all seemed pointless to ask out loud, since Aubrey and Fat Amy were just as clueless as she was.

But that wasn't going to stop Aubrey from taking action. "We need to put the school on lockdown and alert Gail, Jack, Charlene, and the Professor," she said automatically. In response to Beca and Fat Amy's alarmed looks, she said, "If the kidnapper is a shape-shifting mutant, who knows who else they could be targeting. Beca, call Jesse and tell him to return everyone immediately—"

There was a knock on the door and Benji poked his head through. He seemed visibly nervous to be in the girls' section of the dormitory, not that it was explicitly forbidden. "Um, Aubrey?" he said with a slight confusion mixed in with his embarrassed his tone. "People from the FBI are downstairs… They're asking for whoever's in charge and, well, I don't exactly know who that is..."

Aubrey and Beca exchanged looks of surprise. Maybe the agencies _did_ pick up on Chloe's disappearance after all.

Hurried footsteps suddenly approached and Jesse pushed his way in through the door, looking panicked. "Emily—freaking out—just told me—Chloe's—what the hell—are _you_ okay?" he stammered between breaths as he leaned on Beca with a hand on her shoulder. "And the FBI are downstairs asking for us—asking for the _Alpha team_ —saying something about our involvement in the Manhattan explosions." He turned to Aubrey, then to everyone around him, and gulped. "What the hell is going on?"

* * *

Cynthia Rose placed her phone back in her pocket and sucked the last of her soda from the cup before standing up to return the laptop to its owner watching her warily from another table. "Thanks for lending me your computer," she said with a grateful nod. "Mission accomplished: my grandma's boudoir photos are off the Internet… for now at least."

The college student grimaced at her over-sharing as he took his laptop back. Before letting her leave, however, he nodded at the AMG ID card hanging from her belt and said, "Just _promise_ you'll give my resume to AMG, all right? An internship in New York would look great on my record."

Cynthia Rose rolled her eyes and patted the Manila folder she was carrying, where the kid's resume was nestled between various documents. "Tell you what, how about I skip HR and give it straight to Gail Abernathy-McKadden herself?"

The student dropped his jaw in excitement. "Sweet!"

Cynthia Rose thanked him once more and exited the fast food restaurant. As she crossed the streets of the Windy City, she wondered what Aubrey and Beca would possibly need with security footage of the residential wing. A break-in would be unlikely, since there was no better secured campus on earth, so it was probably another one of their infamous paintball training games. But she pushed her concern out of the way once she arrived at the doors of the Chicago Police Department.

"Good afternoon, how can I help?" greeted the Information receptionist inside.

"Uh, I'd like to request a police record. Please and thank you."

"Okay, do you have the request form ready, or…?"

After handing the form over, Cynthia Rose was directed toward the records department and asked to wait as they processed her request. She had barley brushed the cold metal of the waiting room chairs with her thighs when a senior-looking officer entered with her form in hand. "Miss Adams?" he called out, even though Cynthia Rose was the only person in the room. His tone was authoritative and his face was scrunched up in a permanent scowl. "You requested a record on the multiple explosions in Streeterville last Tuesday, October fourth, at approximately nine-thirteen AM?"

Unfazed by the man's unwelcoming tone, Cynthia Rose nodded. The officer gave her a hard look, as though he had expected more details from her. "May I ask _why_?"

Cynthia Rose raised an eyebrow. "I don't have to give a reason, do I?"

If possible, the man looked even more displeased. "What are you? Media?" he grunted. When she shook her head, he started turning back to his office but not before saying, "We can't give you the report."

"If you need a letter requesting to see that report under the Freedom of Information Act, I have one right here," challenged Cynthia Rose, pulling the letter out from her folder. She wasn't easily discouraged, having expected bumps along the way, and in her opinion bumps only signaled that she was looking in the right place.

The officer turned to face her again and, for what felt like the longest minute of her life, stared her down. But she didn't relent until he finally admitted, "We didn't make the report."

"Excuse me?"

"The FBI did, so go ask them," he said gruffly, "and don't be surprised if waving that letter gets you nowhere but in their cross sights."

Cynthia Rose stiffened. "But you gotta know something," she said almost desperately as he turned to leave again. "Chicago PD should have conducted a part of the investigation."

The officer looked at her again and Cynthia Rose braced herself for another staring competition, but he only gave her a once over this time—taking note of her dark pink curly-hawk and casual attire, versus her contrasting professional behavior. He was profiling her. "You're a mutant?" he asked, though his tone suggested he already knew the answer.

"And proud of it," Cynthia Rose replied calmly. "Mutant ID number zero-five; Category Two. My last check-up was two days ago—you can check the website."

The officer nodded and Cynthia Rose sensed his respect for her rise a bit. It probably had to do with her following the rules. "We were dispatched to the site at nine-fifteen," he began in a dry tone. "Upon arrival we determined extensive property damage but no immediately visible casualties. The FBI came almost as soon we did, said it was a confidential national security issue, and we let them take over."

"Just like that?" said Cynthia Rose, throwing up her hands in disappointment.

The officer straightened up sternly. "Miss, when things are matter of _national security_ , you chuck your ego at the door and do whatever you can to help," he scolded. "Besides, they were right, weren't they? You people—" He shook his head and corrected himself. " _Unregistered_ mutants _are_ a threat to national security."

"Says who?" scowled Cynthia Rose.

The officer nodded toward the small TV attached to the wall of the waiting room. It was turned on to the news, and Cynthia Rose recognized the familiar backdrop of the White House Press Room.

* * *

"And it's the same story in Houston?"

Gail listened as Cynthia Rose listed the similarities between the attacks in Chicago and Houston: no casualties, just property damage, and the FBI took over both cases as well as the one on the most recent attack. And after each one, media attention got only bigger. She sighed and drummed her fingers on her desk. "Okay… Yeah, we've seen the news. Don't worry, we won't let it get out of hand… Okay, let me know when you've arrived so I can send a car… Okay. Bye."

"Bad news?"

Gail turned to her husband and nodded. "We're not going to be able to get to the bottom of these explosions as easily as I thought."

"So the spread of misinformation continues," sighed Jack, putting the TV on mute and declining yet another call from his high-profile business connections asking for his statement in response to the President's recent declaration. When the next call came in, he paused before rejecting it. "Well, actually, there _is_ something we can do."

Gail looked at him pointedly and shook her head. "No, Jack, we can't go on the defensive. Not yet."

"But mutants are already being dragged through the mud!"

"We have to finesse this, honey. Releasing a statement will only shine the spotlight on Barden. We don't want that."

Before Jack could say anything more on the matter, Gail's phone rang. She glanced at the ID and smiled. "Hi, Beca. Did Chloe forgive you yet?" she greeted cheekily, to her husband's amusement. Then her smile faltered. "Aubrey? I thought—what's wrong?"

When Aubrey got her point across, Gail lowered the phone from her ear shakily. "Chloe's been kidnapped," she said, her mind still trying to catch up to her emotions. She felt as though she were hit by a truck but rather than hurt the feeling of getting hit kept going. "The FBI are at Barden right now…"

"What?!" Jack leapt from his chair and grabbed the phone from Gail. "This is Jack. What happened?"

In the middle of Aubrey's explanation of Chloe's mysterious disappearance following a visit from someone who looked exactly like Beca, the doors to Jack and Gail's office burst open and three men in dark suits entered, with Jack's assistant attempting to squeeze in between them.

"I'm sorry, sir, they just barged in—!"

One of the men cleared his throat to shut Jonathan up. From the looks of it, they weren't there for a friendly visit. "Mr. and Mrs. McKadden," he said in a deep, monotonous voice, "you are under arrest for the violation of the Espionage Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act…" As he recited these, he and his associate approached Jack and Gail, pulling out their handcuffs in as little a menacing manner as they could given the circumstances.

The gray-haired man in the middle had remained standing by the doors, looking unconvincingly regretful. Jack caught a glimpse of the FBI Special Agent badge attached to his belt when the man put his hands in his pockets.

"What is going on?" demanded Jack, as the arresting agents moved on to reading him his rights. "What exactly are these violations?"

The Special Agent gave him a 'don't give me that bullshit' look, but complied with legal procedure. "Illegally transmitting classified documents concerning national defense? Hacking into government servers?" He blew a low whistle. "You're looking at, what, twenty years, Jack? But I guess you're used to it, huh? Just think of it as another… _spiritual retreat_."

Jack stared the man down but said nothing. He looked over at his wife and saw that she, too, was glaring at her arresting agent, her hands cuffed behind her back. Their eyes met and they exchanged concerned and comforting looks; Gail's seemed to ask, "She'll be okay… right?"

Jack wanted to nod yes, but the situation was quickly spiraling out of their control: While he was confident that the charges against them could easily be fought outside court, the legal proceedings would undoubtedly keep them from taking part in the search for Chloe. He could only hope that the Barden students weren't being targeted as well, so they could take on the task of finding Chloe and bringing her back.

"Jonathan, call our lawyer and tell her to hurry," Jack said with a scathing look toward the Special Agent. "I'd like to get back to whatever it is we are being _stalled_ from doing."

The Agent merely smirked as Jack and Gail were escorted out of their own office. "What, no press statement?"

"Oh, I'm sure you'll deal with the media just fine without our help," Gail snapped as she passed him on the way out.

* * *

" _The most dangerous form of terrorism is one that comes from inside our own homes, our own neighborhoods. We can no longer ignore the increasing threat posed by our own fellow Americans who refuse to cooperate with the law. It is on this note that I hereby announce the FBI's Most Wanted Mutant Fugitives. We urge everyone to protect your family, your community, and your country by helping the FBI capture these unregistered mutants."_

Emily bit her lip nervously as the man on television standing behind the President stepped over to the podium and began reading a short list of names while candid photos flashed on the screen. She didn't recognize them but she knew that most were former Barden students.

"This isn't right," muttered Benji, who was sitting on the other end of the couch, his leg bouncing up and down restlessly. "The Alpha team fought the Heartless and rescued people _alongside_ these guys—there's no way they're to blame."

"But all the evidence points to them," one of Emily's classmates said lazily, not bothering to look up from her freshly coated nails. Emily never liked her, and her response was only proof that she was right not to.

"You mean the _lack_ of evidence does," corrected Fat Amy. She was sitting low on the couch, between Benji and Emily, and carelessly twirling a lock of her golden hair around her finger, but Emily could tell that the blonde was concerned by the way her eyes were narrowed at the screen. "They couldn't find traces of an explosive device so they think whatever caused the explosion wasn't your run-of-the-mill, Loony Tunes bomb type of thing."

"And what's worse is they're dragging Beca and the others into it," Emily added indignantly, with a glance toward the door beyond which, just down the hallway, the Alpha team was being interrogated in the library. "It's just the worst timing ever, what with Chloe disappearing like that…"

"Girl, you don't know the _half_ of it," sighed Fat Amy. "The first thing they did when Beca told them she was missing was search our room, and from the way they stripped everything apart, I wouldn't be surprised if they put Chloe up on that list as a fugitive. Sooner or later, Beca and the others will be criminals, too."

Emily turned to her in surprise. "That's crazy! Chloe's been _kidnapped,_ she's got nothing to do with those explosions—none of them do! If anything, the FBI should be worried about _protecting_ them."

Fat Amy half-heartedly shot her a disdainful look. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you're the dumbest person alive if you don't see what's happening right now."

Benji leaned across Fat Amy and shyly mumbled, "You're not dumb, Emily," before turning back to the TV with a grimace. "At first, even _I_ didn't want to believe that they were being singled out, but now… I mean the Gamma team was there, too, but why aren't _we_ being questioned?" He shook his head. "I just wish there was something we could do to help."

"Don't bother. They're not going to listen to us," scoffed Fat Amy. "Even less so now that they have a reason to suspect that Barden students are collaborating with unreggies. We should just let it play out for now. Keep our heads down."

Emily looked between the two older students and clenched her fists on her lap. "I'm with Benji," she said firmly. "We should do something to help clear their names. Don't they, like, get character witnesses or something to prove that they're good people?" When Fat Amy merely shrugged, she got up indignantly. "If you're not going to help, then Benji and I will do it," she said, pulling him up by the hand.

Fat Amy followed them with her eyes. She continued masking the concern she actually felt over the rising tensions, but there really was nothing she could do to make the situation any better so, resorting to her signature crass humor, she called out to them to "Use protection!"

Emily was out the door before she could hear the suggestion but Benji blanched and stuttered, "That's not what—we're not—!" before being pulled into the hallway with Emily. "Uh, Emily? You and I will do what exactly?" he asked her once they slowed down a few feet from the library.

Emily pressed her ear against the door and motioned Benji to do the same. They were lucky that none of the officers chose to linger in the hallway, but even so they still couldn't hear anything through the thick walls so Emily grabbed Benji's wrist again and led him past the library door and around the corner. "Do you remember which side of the library the couches are on?" she asked, feeling the walls with her fingertips. "Or better yet, that small corner under the table with the dusty globe on it?"

"Um." Benji looked around and out the window to orient himself with the cardinal directions. "On the east… so, yeah, right about here. Why?"

"Do you wanna know what's happening in there?"

"But, Emily, that's eavesdropping—"

"Do you want to or not?" Emily asked again with a challenging look. There was something about breaking the rules to stand up for her fellow mutants that energized and excited her. With a reluctant gulp, Benji nodded and Emily quickly brought him down to the floor with her. "Just relax," she said, putting her hand on his shoulder and pushing him forward. "I phase through walls all the time."

"With other people?" Benji asked hopefully, adjusting himself on all fours.

"Well, a backpack filled with books—but that's pretty much like a human anyway."

Benji's eyes widened but before he could say or do anything to stop her, Emily guided his head toward the wall. Right before the expected impact he shut his eyes and held his breath—visions of being stuck between the mansion's walls filling his mind—until, not more than two seconds later, Emily gently tapped him. He opened his eyes and found himself looking up at Emily, sticking out of the library's burgundy wallpaper from the waist up.

Emily pulled Benji further until his arms crossed the wall and they were just far enough to rest their elbows on the hardwood floor before hitting the back of the bookshelf in front of them. She pressed a finger to her lips and they began to listen in on the tense situation.

* * *

"As Miss Posen so _politely_ pointed out earlier," the woman sitting across them with her legs crossed said in a tone that let them know Aubrey _hadn't_ in fact been polite, "unlike Mr. and Mrs. McKadden, none of you is under arrest and none of you has to, well, answer our questions without your lawyers present."

Beca smirked in spite of the situation. The FBI could push through Barden's doors unannounced, demand to meet the Alpha team privately, and intimidate them with their suits and badges, but they stood no chance against Aubrey's rules-obsessed wit. She only wished that the FBI had the brains to focus on more than one thing and get on with finding Chloe.

"So what are you still doing here then? You know the way out," Aubrey said coolly. She was not pleased to be subtly accused of conspiring with unregistered mutants, who were former Barden students and her _friends_ and themselves accused of those violent attacks—all while Chloe was missing and possibly seriously hurt. And to sum it up, all this happened with her in charge.

The woman, a Special Agent with the FBI, looked at Aubrey coldly before answering, "We were _hoping_ Barden would help us with the ongoing investigation into the series of incidents in Houston, Chicago, and, most recently, New York."

"So you admit that you're still investigating." Aubrey crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "Then why does it feel like you're already charging the unregistered mutants with the crime?"

"We are not charging them with _that_ , Ms. Posen. May I remind you that they are still in violation of the MRA by not registering themselves with the DHS—"

"Yes, I'm sure _that's_ why they've just been named the FBI's Most Wanted Mutants," Aubrey shot back.

The FBI agent's nostrils flared. "As I said, the investigation is ongoing and we are pursuing every—"

"This investigation is bullshit!" snapped Beca. "There is no evidence connecting any of the attacks to mutants! What you _should_ be investigating is our missing friend!"

"Like I said, Miss Mitchell, the investigation is ongoing and it _includes_ the search for Miss Beale—"

"So you're accusing them of kidnapping Chloe, too?" Aubrey said angrily. "Why don't you go ahead and pin global warming on unregistered mutants, too?"

"Look, I understand you're pissed over the FBI arresting the McKaddens, but please, Ms. Posen, be reasonable," the agent scolded. "We have no knowledge of _how many_ unregistered mutants are at large or _what_ their powers even are. After we get—" she looked down at her notepad "—Miss Junk's statement and verify that Miss Mitchell here was indeed at Barden University at the time of the kidnapping, we can begin tracking down this undoubtedly _unregistered_ , shape-shifting mutant. But rest assured, finding Miss Beale is also our top priority. A Category Three mutant might have been targeted by this group for the purpose of carrying out another attack—"

"Does everyone in your agency have their heads up their asses?" Beca growled in frustrated disbelief, but Aubrey put a hand up to calm her down.

"Haven't you read our reports to Homeland Security?" she asked with a frown. "They clearly show that Chloe has not been able to exhibit her powers yet."

The agent frowned slightly but stuck to her guns. "If that's the case, then all the more reason you should help us find them as soon as possible," she insisted. "If they realize Miss Beale is unable to perform, do you think they'd just willingly give her back and risk revealing their identities? No. The faster we find them, the faster we find Miss Beale."

Beca and Aubrey exchanged looks of disgust at how pathetically insincere the woman was being; she didn't care about Chloe and would say anything to get them to cooperate. Jesse had remained quiet throughout the questioning so far, opting to stand back as his best friend and his girlfriend ripped this woman a new one, but even _he_ wasn't nice enough not to scoff.

"Look, I know you three have personal relationships with this particular group of unregistered mutants," the agent said carefully. "And I understand that it's hard to think of friends as _criminals,_ much less turn them in, but I urge you to look at the bigger picture here. There can't be that many groups of unregistered mutants; in their circles, it is likely that one knows what another is doing. If it turns out that your friends didn't kidnap Miss Beale, then wonderful. All they have to do is register and get a small slap on the wrist—and then _help us_ find who did it. And _that_ leads us to Miss Beale. It's a win-win if you think about it."

Beca had actually been mulling over the idea of tracking Luke down to ask about the shape-shifting mutant after Aubrey had theorized that the kidnapper could be an unregistered mutant and _not_ , as Jesse had wildly suggested, Beca's evil twin. But that plan was now too risky with the FBI suspecting them of collaborating with fugitives. Aubrey must have thought the same thing, because she gave Beca the tiniest shake of her head, a signal not to trust this woman, who was clearly baiting them.

Beca studied Aubrey's expression closely to try to understand what made her so distrustful—not that she disagreed with her; Aubrey had always been pro-registration—or, at the very least, willing to cooperate with the authorities to keep Barden at a low profile. But her unwillingness to cooperate now spoke to how grave Aubrey must have thought the situation had become in the last twenty-four hours: the (theoretically) most powerful mutant known to man had just been kidnapped and, after yet another city attack, public sentiment on the mutant issue was quickly shifting from ensuring non-mutants' safety to outright persecuting the mutants themselves. Things were so getting so bad that Beca couldn't even feel smug about being right not to trust that the MRA would protect them.

But before any of them could respond to the agent, the door burst open and the Professor entered wearing an uncharacteristically harsh expression.

* * *

Emily exchanged looks with Benji during the pause, both wondering what the Alpha team's decision would be. She was glad they weren't trying to pin anything on the Alpha team, but she was also surprised and dismayed to hear about the arrest of Chloe's parents. Meanwhile Benji happened to look down at Emily's torso and was surprised to find that she could move back and forth through the wall, and so could he; they weren't stuck around it as he had expected.

He gave the brunette a look of genuine admiration—but then felt his legs suddenly being pulled back sharply, him along with them. Emily let out a small yelp as she, too, was pulled forcibly from the wall.

* * *

"Well... Dora the Internet Explorer was right," announced Bumper, emerging from Lilly's portal with two six-packs of beer. "The President just made unregistered mutants public enemy number one."

"Already?" Stacie asked concernedly.

"He said he was acting on the best interests of the public," said Bumper. "What are you so smug about?" he added with a glare at Tommy, who was leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head. "You know, I might actually have powers— _psychic_ powers," he boasted. "I told ya this was gonna happen."

Bumper smacked the pasty hacker upside the back of his head. "Then find a way to stop it happening, you dillhole! Otherwise, we're going to be in hiding for the rest of our lives."

"We're working on it!" insisted Tommy. "Look, there goes Stacie right now—" As they spoke, their eyes tracked the brunette, who had shot toward Lilly and immediately told her where to go.

The unregistered mutants watched as the two women dove into a portal and, once the glowing purple energy faded to a dot, murmurs spread around their shelter about the new development.

"There's no turning back now," said Alice, looking at Luke. "If we're caught, it's over."

Luke nodded grimly. Regretfully.

But, to everyone's surprise, less than thirty seconds after they had left, Stacie and Lilly returned, pale and out of breath (at least on Stacie's part), looking as though she had just outrun a cheetah. "Gail—arrested," she panted. "AMG is crawling with FBI. We can't go anywhere near there."

"Shit," cursed Tommy, running a hand through his messy hair. "Well, that leaves us no choice then. We have to do Plan B."

Stacie exchanged looks with Luke, knowing how absolute he was against involving more civilians in their operations. But without the assurance that her former boss was handling the situation, they really had no choice. "You already know my thoughts on this," she told him.

With a glance toward Alice and the rest of their group, Luke nodded slowly in concession. "Just be make sure they can't track you, or him, down," he told the hacker.

Tommy raised his hands confidently and smirked, "Hey, this isn't my first rodeo. Leave it to me."

"In the meantime, Stacie," Luke continued thoughtfully, an idea coming to him of another choice that still remained open, "I think we're due for another reunion."

* * *

"What is going on here?" John Smith looked between Aubrey and the female FBI agent, waiting for either to begin explaining.

"Sir, the FBI are accusing unregistered mutants—" Aubrey began in an indignant tone, but the agent cut her off.

"Mr. Smith, the FBI is doing no such thing," she corrected patronizingly, as though glad that an actual 'adult' had come to represent Barden. "We are simply requesting the help of your students, who have proven to be capable and—"

"They want us to help them arrest Luke and the others," interjected Aubrey, throwing a dark glare the agent's way for interrupting her. "Even though they can't prove they were behind any of the attacks."

John looked at Aubrey as though she had grown an extra head. "And why haven't you agreed yet?"

Aubrey, Beca, and Jesse stared back at him dumbly. "Because… they haven't proven they were behind it…?" Jesse repeated slowly, in case John's confusion was due to the fact that he didn't hear the last thing Aubrey said.

"But they are still unregistered mutants, are they not?" he countered. "In fact, Aubrey, I distinctly remember telling you to round up the unregistered mutants, too. What happened?"

"You said to track down the ones causing trouble!" protested Aubrey, though the inflection in her tone suggested that she had planned to use that as a loophole ever since.

"I see you took great liberties in interpreting that," said John. "But to use your own logic, your friends _are_ causing trouble. They are causing trouble by being unregistered."

Beca gaped at him. "You're taking _their_ side?" she demanded, waving a careless hand toward the FBI agent, unleashing a breeze strong enough to blow the notepad out of her hand and dishevel her hair. (It may have been intentional.)

John looked at Beca warily, already expecting this from the resident rebel. "There are no _sides_ , Beca. We agreed to cooperate with the authorities and we will see to it that we do."

The three friends exchanged looks. "But, Professor—!"

" _That's enough_." He gave them a reprimanding glare and folded his arms. "What on earth has happened to this institute? I've been gone a few months and already things are falling apart!" He began listing on his fingers: "A third of the students are lagging behind in their progress, ridiculous _paintball fights_ ruin the gorgeous wallpaper that I painstakingly chose, and government funds are being wasted on _toys_! And on top of all that, _Chloe is missing!_ "

Aubrey and Jesse hung their heads and even Beca had the decency to shuffle guiltily.

"It is clear that I was too hasty in putting you in charge so soon after the MRA, Aubrey," said John, not angrily but clearly disappointed in her. "I respect Luke as much as anyone in this room does and I have known him just as long, so I know that if the roles were reversed, _he_ would have done the right thing."

Avoiding the eyes of the FBI agent, who was trying to hide her smugness, Aubrey set her jaw and Beca briefly wondered if this was the first time she had ever been scolded by the Professor.

"The Alpha team will help capture _all_ unregistered mutants," John declared with an air of finality to both his students and the agent before adding to the former, "Or so help me I will send the Beta team to do your dirty work."

* * *

"… _no longer ignore the increasing threat posed by our own fellow Americans who refuse to cooperate with the law. It is on this note that I hereby announce the FBI's Most Wanted Mutant Fugitives. We urge everyone to protect your family..."_

Emily opened the door to the living room with a trembling hand. She had no idea what had happened, or who had pulled them away from their eavesdropping; all she remembered was grabbing a hold of Benji and phasing them both through the floor to try to get away, but she ended up losing focus and phased all the way to one of the underground training rooms—without Benji.

Yet there he was in the living room, sitting on the couch with his leg shaking up and down restlessly not more than two minutes later, looking as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. On the other end of the couch, where she had been sitting earlier, was Fat Amy, the small frown on her brow revealing her concern over the news. A handful of their fellow Barden students sat in armchairs or stood against the wall with their arms folded, each wearing different expressions of varying degrees of concern. For instance, her annoying classmate sitting by the window was once again painting her nails.

"H-hi, Emily," stuttered Benji, upon noticing her enter the room. "You can have my seat if—if you want."

Emily watched in quiet amusement as Benji shot up and gave the cushion a light dusting before offering it to her. She couldn't tell if he was being his normal awkward self or if he was pretending that nothing had happened. "How did you get here?" she whispered, keeping her voice low enough that the others wouldn't be distracted from watching the television.

Benji tilted his head curiously and looked around him to make sure the unusual question was being addressed to him. "W-well, I woke up, had breakfast, went to class, then I had lunch—"

"No, I meant after we..." She paused, the news catching her eye. "Wait, is this a rerun?" she asked, pointing to the names and faces of unregistered mutants.

Benji shook his head, his curious frown turning into one of concern. "It's breaking news… Why?"

Emily let her jaw drop. She stood up slowly and started backing out of the room, her ears filling with the sound of her heartbeat. A few of her fellow classmates glanced at her oddly but only Benji seemed to realize that there was genuinely something wrong.

"Emily?"

Without a word, she fumbled through the doors and planned to make her way down the hallway, to the library to verify one final thing—but she skidded to a halt. She was that now was probably not the best time to interrupt her trainers' interrogation, as the Professor had just wrenched open the library's doors, looking quite disapproving.

* * *

 **Part III: The Night Descending**

* * *

" _Beca._ "

"Hey. Any luck?" asked Beca, resting her head against the wall of Chloe's room. There hadn't been much evidence in Chloe's room for the FBI to gather, other than swabs of the doorknob and other objects the impostor might have touched, so Beca had decided to stay there as a source of comfort, alone, while everyone was having a somber dinner.

She heard an apologetic sigh on the other the line. " _I'm sorry, Beca,_ " said Charlene, " _they didn't know anything. I'm on my way back. I'll be there in half an hour._ "

Beca sighed. Jesse had recounted how Charlene seemed so flustered and distracted over the phone when he called to inform her of Chloe's disappearance, and Beca allowed herself to hope that the Professor's assistant was actually on to something when she told Jesse that she might know someone who could help.

" _John called me. Apparently this afternoon didn't go very well for you either,_ " Charlene said when Beca didn't break her silence.

"He pretty much ripped us a new one," Beca said dully. "Aubrey's pissed. I don't think she expected the Professor to bow down to the FBI so quickly."

" _Well, I can only assume that John thinks it's easier to just agree to their demands than to raise hostility between us even more._ "

Beca chewed the inside of her cheek. Charlene had a point, but it didn't make Beca dislike the Professor any less. "Either way, I think today pretty much shattered the rose-colored glasses Aubrey saw him through." She let out a mirthless chuckle. "It's funny, considering how just a couple of months ago Stacie was accusing Aubrey of doing that… and now she's the one defending Stacie against him."

" _People can change, Beca._ "

"Yeah, but it seems there's one person who doesn't stop being suspicious."

" _Beca…_ "

"Look, I already told you my theory," Beca said quietly. "And I agree that he has no reason to do anything shitty again but…" She shrugged even though Charlene couldn't see her. "I don't know. There's just something off about him. There always has been."

" _Beca, I really don't think John has anything to do with this. If your theory on this Kingdom Hearts thing is correct and he knew you suspected him, then why would he only take Chloe? It just doesn't seem plausible._ "

"Then who do _you_ think has Chloe?" Beca demanded in frustration. "Why did they choose _me_ to disguise themselves as—how would they even know we're together? What do they want with Chloe and why haven't they contacted anyone yet if they just plan to ransom her off?"

" _I… I don't know, Beca. Have you spoken to Jack and Gail about this?_ "

Beca pinched the bridge of her nose, her stomach sinking as she realized that Charlene hadn't been told of the incident and simultaneously remembered yet another addition to their growing list of problems. "Jack and Gail were arrested this afternoon."

" _WHAT!?_ "

"It happened while we were telling them about Chloe," she said wearily. "They hung up before we could hear anything but Cynthia Rose told us what happened after. They were charged with illegally moving secret documents and hacking into government computers, or something like that."

" _Why hasn't anyone told me?_ "

"Well, it's not on the news yet; CR says both sides are still preparing their statements… The Professor left after we told him; he's heading over there right now, and honestly, things have been such a mess lately..." Beca took a deep breath and closed her eyes, feeling them sting from the buildup of tears. All she wanted to do was focus on finding Chloe, but all this other shit had to happen at the same time. "I've never felt so lost and helpless in my entire life."

She was surprised that the words came out verbally. Charlene was just the Professor's assistant after all and Beca never particularly bonded with the woman. But, as she was the only mature adult in their otherwise parent-free living situation, Charlene was the most dependable person the students could turn to in a situation like this. With even Aubrey shaken up over the day's events, and with Jack and Gail indisposed, they all needed someone to rally around.

" _Beca, I'm really, really sorry._ " Charlene sounded incredibly sincere, and that was good enough for Beca to hear. After a pause, the woman continued, " _Have you tried Kommissar?_ "

Happy with the shift of tone, Beca immediately responded in the affirmative. "But I don't exactly know how this calling card works," she added, releasing her Keyblade and observing the hilt, where Kommissar had put the Heartless emblem. "I've never bothered to try before. I tried calling out her name and everything, but she's not answering."

" _And you can't detect Chloe either?_ "

Beca bit her lip. She had tried countless times throughout the day, using the whole 'our hearts are connected' thing Chloe was going on about before, to get an idea of where Chloe might have ended up, but she was beginning to believe the connection was only metaphorical. "I don't think that's humanly possible," she said dejectedly.

" _Okay... Don't worry, we'll figure something out when I get there. I'll see you soon._ "

Beca hung up and tossed her phone onto Chloe's bed. She watched it bounce precariously close to the edge of the mattress, before pushing herself away from the wall and sitting down on it. Whereas the framed photo on Beca's bedside was of the recreated piggyback ride in the garden, Chloe's was of her pulling Beca down by the shirt for a kiss; the warm glow from a birthday cake in front of her added a beautiful color to the look of pure happiness on both their faces.

Beca had been staring at the picture for a while when, without warning, Chloe's wardrobe began to violently shake and dark purple flames seeped through the gaps. She jumped up in alarm and readied her Keyblade, only to lower it when Kommissar emerged from the cabinet nonchalantly, followed by an amused Pieter with Chloe's cardigan draped across his chest like a bib.

Beca exhaled. "There the fuck you two are. I've been trying to reach you!"

"We were in India, following the leak," informed Kommissar, looking around the room. "Where is Chlobear?"

Beca gritted her teeth at the cutesy nickname but she was past the point of pride; they all needed to act immediately. "That's what I've been trying to call you about! She's been kidnapped and I need your help to find her."

Kommissar's eyes widened only slightly. "How did this happen?" she asked, with a trace of concern.

"It doesn't matter how! Just do your thing and take me to her!" demanded Beca. They always seemed to pop up in the middle of her private moments with Chloe so they had to know how to get to her whenever, wherever.

Pieter cast her an amused look. "We cannot just go to people—how you say— _willy nilly_. Can _you_ grow a mustache without having a head?"

Beca made a face. " _What?_ "

"We cannot detect Chloe any more than you can," Kommissar clarified calmly.

"Bullshit!" growled Beca, the fall of her last hope making her irrationally angry. "Don't tell me you don't have a connection with Chloe— _you_ saved her from that place and ever since then you're _always_ around her!"

Kommissar was silent, choosing to let Beca get on with saying what she really wanted to say. Pieter, on the other hand, was growing less amused as Beca turned from an easy-to-tease little mouse to an angry wildcat.

"She told me about you visiting her after her session," Beca accused while pacing aimlessly around Chloe's bed. She hated how jealous she sounded by saying that, so she changed her attack strategy. "You know what, that's probably why she's been so upset lately! You're smearing her with your—with your weird connection to the darkness."

Still, Kommissar said nothing while Pieter crossed his arms and eyed Beca thoughtfully. Ironically, their silence woke Beca up to how ridiculous she was being, which made her suspect that this was their plan all along. Letting out the green monster was not helping the search for Chloe, so Beca shook her head and said evenly, "Look, just help me find her, okay? I don't give a damn about the leak right now—"

Beca paused. The leak; Chloe's recent behavior; the diminishing Heartless attacks; Kingdom Hearts—

"The reason we have been visiting Chloe is not because we have a connection—" Kommissar began to explain, but Beca unwisely cut her off.

"Hold on," she shushed, still trying to see the connection between recent events. (Kommissar did not look pleased to be told to shut up.) "The leak—does Chloe's kidnapping have anything to do with it?"

"If Chloe's kidnapper is Indian, I suppose," Pieter said facetiously. "We did say we were in India, no?"

"So what?"

"We sensed an underlying taste of darkness in the Asian continent," said Kommissar. "We traced its origins to a temple in the mountains."

"Could Chloe be there?" Beca asked hopefully.

Kommissar shook her head just as a knock on the door informed them of Charlene's arrival. "Any luck?" the raven-haired woman asked, seeing Kommissar and Pieter gathered in front of the wardrobe.

Beca shook her head absentmindedly, her mind still busy looking for a connection. "You said… that whoever was on the receiving end of this darkness stream was growing in power undetected, right? Kind of how Chloe's Heartless was first created?"

Kommissar nodded and Charlene listened curiously.

"What if…" Beca said slowly, "someone's doing it again? Pumping Chloe with darkness until she's just about ready to return to her Heartless form?"

"But what would be the purpose?" asked Pieter, in spite of his disinterest in the matter. "She is not as powerful _now_ ; her Heartless would be too easy to defeat."

"Maybe that's the point."

Charlene finally boarded Beca's train of thought and sighed exasperatedly. "Is this about Kingdom Hearts again?"

Kommissar looked at her before looking back at Beca. "She knows?"

"Just consider it," Beca insisted, ignoring Kommissar's question, and began laying out her impromptu theory. "Barden has been around for a while, but at the beginning there had to be some students you couldn't convince to join up, right?"

Charlene nodded and motioned for Beca to continue.

"But how did you know they were mutants if they didn't come to Barden directly?"

"As far as I was told, the government provided the information on potential students," said Charlene. In response to Beca's surprised look, she added, "In case you have forgotten, Beca, Barden is and _always has been_ government-funded. John was put in charge ever since the inception of the institute."

Beca _had_ forgotten, but the reminder didn't matter; in fact, it only supported her theory. "So it's entirely possible that he was given some sort of master list of mutants and he kept in touch with a shape-shifter that _didn't_ go to Barden in case he ever needed him one day."

Pieter chose that moment to get fully interested in Beca's theory. "Other than the natural inclination to make the sweet loving to your identical self, why would he need a shape-shifter?" he asked.

"So that—what?" Beca shook her head at Pieter's outrageous remark and continued, "So that after he found out how to revive Chloe, he could kidnap her all over again!"

Pieter "ah"-ed and clapped his hands like a child being shown a magic trick. Beca worried that none of them was taking her seriously so she continued to defend her theory. "Chloe is emotionally vulnerable right now and, I swear, I can _feel_ the darkness growing in her," she said firmly, reflecting on their recent fighting and Chloe's frustration over her powers. "This might be the perfect opportunity for the Professor to recreate her Heartless, _kill_ it, and use the energy released by her heart to complete Kingdom Hearts!"

Charlene waited until Beca was done speaking, but she looked about ready to burst when she did. "Beca, I'm telling you, setting aside the fact that he hasn't even _been_ in the country for the past four months, it's _impossible_ that John could have known about Kingdom Hearts!"

"Jesus Christ, there are so many ways he could—" Beca froze in the middle of wondering how someone could blindly trust one man, suddenly regretting confiding her thoughts to Charlene all this time when the woman could easily be working with the Professor, being his assistant.

The suspicion must have been clear on her face, because Charlene quickly explained, "Look, _I_ was the one who studied all the literature, okay? _I_ was the one who went through Ansem's reports and figured out how to deal with Chloe's Heartless and Nobody. Believe me, John couldn't write a decent book report on it to save his life. The fact is, he doesn't _know_ about Kingdom Hearts because _I_ never told him."

Beca stared at her. "So you… you knew about it ever since?"

"Yes," admitted Charlene. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you but I honestly never thought it would even be a problem! I would _never_ exploit the light energy but I knew John might, given his history, so I kept it from him. I had hoped the secret would die with me."

"What if he found out some other way?"

Pieter rolled his eyes and Kommissar stepped in before Beca got too far in her theorizing. "I already told you that no human can accomplish what you fear," she said. "And I do not care for the importance you humans give to trust, but if it eases your spirit to know: John Smith has signed over his soul to us as payment for retrieving Chloe from the Dark Margin. I think he would prefer not to anger us by tampering with Kingdom Hearts before his death."

Beca's jaw dropped slightly at the revelation.

"It's true," nodded Charlene. "He even asked me not to tell anyone... remember?"

Beca took a moment to wrap her head around it. Just when she thought she was making sense of her suspicions of the Professor, the universe finds a way to rebut. And worse, it made her realize that all she had been doing was just grasping at straws, and at this point, she had to let go of any hope of finding a clue to what could have happened to Chloe. "So we're back to nothing," she said, deflating. "And once again... I can't save her."

Pieter shrugged in what looked like sympathy while Kommissar continued to stare at Beca. Charlene swallowed a lump in her throat and watched helplessly as Beca sat back down on Chloe's bed and took the picture frame in her hands. After a long pause, it was Kommissar who first spoke.

"The connection you and Chloe have…"

Beca looked up at Kommissar, who was wearing an odd expression.

"It is strong because it is made of light," the goddess continued. "What Pieter and I share with Chloe is only the darkness in our natures. We connect to her inner Heartless; you, however, connect to her heart."

"Then why can't I use this connection to find her?"

Kommissar gave her a condescending smirk, which Beca found surprisingly comforting. It was Pieter, however, who answered her. "Having a connection does not mean you can pop up wherever the other person is. There are rules. _Duh_ , this isn't, like, some kind of magic," he added in his best valley girl accent.

Beca smiled at their attempt to cheer her up. Having the idea that her heart was connected to Chloe's confirmed by Kommissar and Pieter—people whom she knew without a doubt would ridicule the hell out of her if she ever said such a thing out loud—was the most reassuring thing that had happened to Beca the entire day. Because it made her realize that she wasn't supposed to expect everything to always be okay between her and Chloe; there would be challenges, both internally and externally, to keeping their relationship intact but in either case the solution was simple: to keep working through them together.

And in order to do that, she needed to get Chloe back.

* * *

Tired from the day's events, Beca sank further into Chloe's pillow and inhaled the leftover scent of Chloe and her shampoo. An involuntary giggle escaped her as the sweet coconut smell tickled her throat when she inhaled a little too deeply, and that involuntary giggle induced a real one when Beca imagined how Chloe would react to hearing it.

"Nope. I'm out. This is too awkward."

Having completely forgotten that she had company in the room—a room that wasn't hers—Beca raised her head and turned over, seeing Fat Amy roll off her bed, grab a pillow, and start trudging toward the door. "Sorry, I'll go—"

Fat Amy shook her head and waved Beca's apology off. "No, no. You stay. Have fun… getting yours rocks off with Chloe's pillow," she said with an awkward thumbs up. "I'll be bunking with Tigger until further notice."

Rather than defend her dignity, Beca mumbled "Good night," and waited for the door to shut before sinking into the pillow again. She closed her eyes and imagined that it was Chloe, and not her overstuffed pillow, wrapped in her arms. Then, realizing she was alone (truly alone) for the first time since the day had spiraled downward, Beca allowed her mind wander freely.

If Chloe's kidnapping had nothing to do with the forces of light and dark, as she had initially suspected, then the impostor must be acting solely as an unregistered mutant and nothing else. But if Beca were to follow the FBI agent's line of thought, anyone who had access to the Internet could find out that Chloe was not as powerful as her category suggested, so kidnapping her to exploit her powers would be pointless.

That led her to wonder about the other thing the agent said. If the kidnappers were dumb enough to take Chloe without doing their research, would they hurt her when her usefulness was found wanting? Beca could only hope that they were only after the money and that, as morbid as it was to hope such a thing, she would wake up to a demand for ransom in the morning.

Despite the exhausting day it had, Beca's mind couldn't rest. It was still constructing and deconstructing theories when she felt a sudden and unnatural draft brush against her arm. Her eyes flew open, along with Chloe's bed sheets as she whirled them into the air toward her would-be attacker.

"Shh—oh, shit!" The figure under the blanket waved its arms around wildly as it tripped over the bed's dust ruffle. " _Beca!_ "

Beca was taken aback, not so much by the scolding tone of the cry—as if it were _her_ fault the intruder ended up on the floor—but by Chloe's instantly recognizable voice.

* * *

"Her theory is contrived, but there is no doubting her judgment on the presence of darkness around your school," Kommissar said without waiting for Charlene to rise from the hearth where she was building a fire.

"Is it something to be concerned about?" asked Charlene, dusting off her hands as the fireplace bathed her small office in a soft light.

"There is darkness everywhere in this world," Kommissar replied, "but what concerns me is the type and origin of this one. It slips between our fingers too easily."

Charlene nodded. "Beca mentioned something about a leak."

"There are traces of it here even," commented Pieter, skimming through the various titles on Charlene's bookshelf. "You must read a lot of literature to have understood the works of the Ansem the Wise."

"What do the traces mean?" Charlene directed the question to Kommissar, whom she knew would stay on subject.

A shadow crossed the blonde's perfectly chiseled features. "It means they are playing games with us," she said. "And we do not have time for games. _Pieter._ "

Her associate turned away from the old maps and returned to her side. "Our little visit has been fruitless," he observed amusedly.

"We trust you will let Beca know to inform us of Chloe's return at once," Kommissar said in a tone that was neither commanding nor gracious. "Until then…"

Pieter summoned a Corridor behind them and started backing out, but Kommissar remained a few seconds more, staring curiously at Charlene. She gave a small sniff and the corner of her mouth twitched upward. "I never understood why humans place so much value in trust," she said, repeating her earlier remark. "But I think I am starting to."

Kommissar knew.

Now alone in her office, Charlene swallowed the lump in her throat that wouldn't go away. (She wondered if it was some sort of manifestation of her conscience.) But it didn't matter how Kommissar knew or what gave it away—most likely the darkness she sniffed out of her—because Charlene had decided that she was done hiding. She had built a tower of lies and now she had to let go of some of them before everything fell apart.

Charlene bolted the door and drew the curtains of the small window in the corner. Coming out was going to be painful and she'd rather not have anyone interrupt in the middle of it—especially not in her progressing state of undress. Once her clothes were gathered neatly on the desk, and using the very same focus exercises and visual techniques that Barden students were tirelessly taught to use, Charlene placed herself in the ideal mental and physical state to channel her own mutant power.

She hissed in pain as bones grew and reshaped with an audible _crack,_ and flesh stretched to their limits only to keep stretching further. It was a much more difficult and excruciating process than he remembered when he last took the shape of another—the shape of a woman he saw in passing ten years ago at the grocery store.

* * *

 **Response to Reviews:**

 **xcombixgirlx** (Apr. 13) - So it's good that you've had seven weeks to recover from that angst and now, well, I don't know if you'd consider this angst haha. Yeah, I see both sides of their argument, too. Even _I_ can't tell who's right...

 **Psychic Guest** (Apr. 13  & 17) - The gap between Chs. 22 and 23 was ~5 weeks and you squealed when 23 came out, so now you are fully entitled to upgrade that squeal to a 'WTF where have you been?.' Unfortunately, as much as I would love to further explore this AU and share all the fun stuff, the paintball chapter will probably be the only time we see the reports. (Maybe once the series is done I'll come up with some one-shots... Maybe.) Emily is TOTES a Bechloe shipper; she probably has social media accounts dedicated to her OTP. Lucky for you, more POV switches! Even though it hurt to write Chloe so helpless, I _did_ love coming up with the rescue scene. Haha, don't worry, your Staubrey thirst is being noted. I also enjoy elaborating on Stacie and CR's relationship because it's quite unique; they're not like the Barden students and they have those years at AMG together we don't know about. ( **TRIVIA** **:** Back in Season 1, when I was deciding which two mutants would be AMG's secret agents, I literally wrote the Bellas' names, minus ABC ofc, on pieces of paper and drew lots. I got Stacie and CR and the rest is history...) Building on that complicated, moral debate is the lifeblood of Season 3, so I'm glad you enjoy it! A bit of the first-gen history was explored in this chapter... you might have questions that I might answer... *mysterious squint* Haha! Yes, that scene was one line away from becoming a Disney musical. Chloe's side of "today's" events is on the next chapter. Turns out KP (which is how I wanna call Kommissar and Pieter collectively from now on) can't help in this situation. The Prof has been on a world tour teaching people about mutants until _this_ chapter, where it is implied that he returns to deal with the mess. While Jack and Gail have their own worries to deal with, I'm sure they are very concerned about Chloe. Who are the other mutants? To answer that would be to spoil it haha but IDK which 'other mutants' you were talking about exactly. Is Chloe getting her powers back? You have to wait and see 'cause she was barely in this chapter haha. Here's more of this. P.S. I left a _lot_ of prediction-worthy hints. Challenge extended.

 **RJRMovieFan** (Apr. 13) - You and Aubrey think alike. The prevailing theory is that the kidnapper was indeed a shape-shifter. Hmm, what do you think this other group is up to? Chloe's powers play a significant role in Season 3 in a number of ways, one of which was to add that 'fear of mutants' flavor at the beginning (the incident that led to Beca getting shot) that continues on throughout, but it's not the _main_ driver in itself, I think. In fact, it is labeled as a 'subplot' in my notes for some reason... Thanks for the review!

 **Maggie** (Apr. 14  & Jun. 2) - Thank you, Maggie! You're welcome for the advice. And thank you for actively seeking updates! I know I said I'm not the type to be motivated solely by reviews, but receiving one from you somehow makes me want to publish ASAP haha. Although I do apologize; you didn't get to find out about Chloe in this one. But don't worry, the next update won't take another two months. Promise.

* * *

 **A/N:** As I promised Maggie, the next update won't take as long. I actually wrote most of it already because that was supposed to be _this_ chapter. But I had a brain blast and came up with a crazy, elaborate plot that I had to tie in with the original ending... which means (my worst fear) **plot holes** and **continuity errors** _might_ occur. From the very beginning I asked readers to kindly point them out when they see them and that request is still extended because the hole might actually be something I, as the writer, can fill but simply forgot to do so in the story.

If you are confused about ANYTHING at all, please just ask. As you can see from the Response to Reviews section, I don't mind going on at length to supplement your reading experience. Thanks for reading!

* * *

 **Opinion Poll:** I don't feel right categorizing The Light as 'Romance' and/or 'Adventure' anymore, since (a) the Romance is pretty subtle and is not the focus of the story, and (b) adventures aren't actually happening. I put it as 'Sci-Fi' and 'Fantasy' for now, but what do you guys think? Or do people generally not care and I am once again overthinking the hell out of this?


	25. Present Meets Past

**A/N:** In order to keep my promise of updating sooner than seven weeks, I decided against making this a longer chapter. Nevertheless, it still came out to be the longest one I've written so far – almost 20,000 story-words! I hope you haven't grown tired of this story yet haha.

This chapter moves along two different timelines. It's not such a big deal since they don't interact but if you have questions, the blanks will be filled in the next chapter, or you can just ask me.

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Five: Present Meets Past**

The first thing Chloe felt when she regained consciousness was the throbbing at the back of her head, and when she blinked her eyes open she realized that the throbbing was made worse by the erratic rocking of her surroundings. She was lying flat on her back with her head slightly raised on a thin pillow, staring at a shiny white ceiling and white walls with no windows. The surface beneath her palms was cold and hard and if it weren't for the pillow her head would have been in even more pain, scraping against the metal floor.

Chloe quickly sat upright, only to groan when a head rush combined with her migraine. She gingerly rubbed the spot that had been hit and checked for blood, and she was somewhat relieved to feel only a large bump had formed.

She shivered and looked around the small, narrow room. A refrigeration unit just above her head was the cause of the freezing temperature, and seeing it made Chloe realize that the rocking she felt was the result of being driven through rough terrain. She wasn't in a room; she was in a moving vehicle.

After a particularly violent dip in the road, a metal basin holding an ice bag slid to the other side of what Chloe assumed was the back of a refrigerated van. Glancing at the ice bag, it seemed to Chloe that her kidnapper showed more concern for her wellbeing now than when they had hit her over the head earlier; nevertheless, she picked up bag and got to her feet.

"Beca," she whispered to herself, remembering that she hadn't been alone during the attack. Glancing around the compartment, she wondered where Beca could be, and why she wasn't with her when there seemed to be plenty of room for the both of them…

After a while, Chloe sought something to rest her eyes on besides the whiteness of her surroundings, as they gave her an uneasy feeling of déjà vu. She turned to the wall behind her, beneath the refrigeration unit, where she assumed the driver of the van was, and contemplated banging her fist against it to let him know she was awake. But just as she raised her hand to do it, the van hit another bump and Chloe lost her balance. She tumbled backward and fell on her ass—loudly. The van lurched to a halt and Chloe heard muffled voices arguing beyond the divider. There was more than one kidnapper.

Her heart beating like a war drum, Chloe quickly got to her feet when she heard the sound of two doors slamming shut and backed up as far away from the end of the truck as possible. She dropped the ice bag and raised her fists.

 _Okay, Chloe, this is it. This is the moment that makes all your combat training worth it._

The double doors swung open smoothly and revealed the strangest sight Chloe had ever seen—and that included Fat Amy enlarging herself to swallow an entire meatloaf whole.

It was the galactic villain _Darth Vader_ wearing an argyle sweater vest two sizes too large, along with a grotesque monster in skinny jeans—or at least, a woman _wearing_ a Darth Vader helmet and the other a generic dollar store Halloween mask.

Chloe was only momentarily blindsided by her captors' bewildering outfits, since she quickly realized they were likely doing it to hide their identities. But what mostly caught her attention was the view _behind_ the two women: an expanse of overgrown grass as far as the eye could see, and the horizon completely flat with no structures, or even mountains, to disturb it. Only a smattering of clouds against a powder blue sky accented the otherwise plain, desolate image before her.

They had brought her to, quite literally, _the middle of nowhere_.

Chloe's eyes snapped back to her captors. They had both climbed inside the van, and the one in the Darth Vader mask had her hands up to show that they meant no harm. She stopped a few feet away from Chloe out of respect, but the one in the monster mask continued to approach her, hands on her hips and head cocked to the side menacingly. Chloe tried not to be intimidated but she couldn't help instinctively pressing back into the van's wall when the monster brought the horrid mask inches from her face.

"Boo."

* * *

"Are you sure you weren't followed here?"

"Of course not. Why would anyone follow me? I'm a nobody."

"You work as an unlisted researcher for a secret task force within the Abernathy-McKadden Group, hand-picked from the graduating class of UC San Diego's Biological Sciences Division, _despite_ the fact that you had a mere 3.13 GPA. Clearly, there's something special about you."

Justin glared at the pasty-faced young man walking alongside him. Whether the rapidly recited mini-biography was meant as an insult or not, Justin could tell that this guy was quite a character; a thought furthered by the fact that he merely smiled smugly and stuffed his hands into his faded purple hoodie after his assessment.

"Tell me again _why_ we are meeting at your mother's house," said Justin, eyeing a grumpy man trimming his hedges as they passed his well-kept garden.

"It's called hiding in plain sight, my friend," the guy replied, making a sharp turn up the driveway of a quaint one-story house with a porch swing on the deck. He scuffed his shoes on the doormat before turning the knob and letting himself in.

A frail, middle-aged woman popped her head out of the den. "Tommy! What are you doing home?"

"Just came to show my friend some of my old comic books," Tommy explained tersely. "Don't come in my room, Mom! Not even with cookies and juice!"

"All right, sweetie," the woman replied passively. From her tone, Justin deduced that this was a regular request of his.

Justin followed the enigmatic blogger up the steps, passing a number of childhood and graduation photos. He hadn't expected the person behind the pro-mutant website to be _this_ young—but then again, they were probably around the same age and equally involved with the mutant issue. Tommy _did_ , however, have the aura of someone who would chase conspiracy theories, with his beady eyes and hunched shoulders. And, upon entering his room, one more thing was certainly made clearer about him.

"You still live with your—?"

" _No,_ I don't live with my mother," Tommy interjected thickly, throwing some items off his bed to make room for Justin to sit. "It just _looks_ like I do so I have an alibi whenever I need it."

Justin looked unconvinced but took a seat on Tommy's Jurassic Park sheets nonetheless while his host wrenched open a cabinet and reached up into the corners. A couple of comic books fell out and joined the general mess on the bedroom floor. Tommy came back down moments later with an old but well-kept shoebox. "So, what does AMG want to know about the SRA?"

* * *

"I told you not to do that."

The woman in a Darth Vader helmet scolded her accomplice while she half-heartedly pinned Chloe's arms to her sides to prevent the redhead from taking another shot. The monster chuckled as she rubbed the mask over her probably bruising face.

"I'm sorry about her," added Darth Vader, her voice garbled by the toy mask but still managing to come out sounding apologetic. "She likes to mess with people."

Chloe didn't answer right away. She was still trying to determine whether the two women were legitimately insane, or just playing some sort of 'good captor, bad captor' game with her because, based on their casual demeanor, they were either confident that Chloe wouldn't try to escape or just really bad at their job.

"Where's Beca?" she finally asked, pulling her arms out of Darth Vader's pin. The woman gave away instantly, which only increased Chloe's suspicion that this might not be your standard kidnapping.

"Do you wanna tell her or should I?" the monster asked her accomplice. Her voice was not as distorted by the rubber mask but it came out nasally due to the broken nose Chloe had given her. "And kudos, Red, that was a solid punch…"

Chloe ignored the use of the nickname and gave the monster her most intimidating look. "There's more where that came from if you don't tell me where Beca is _right now_."

"Oh, she's not here," she replied matter-of-factly, as though Chloe had just asked about the weather.

"Then where—?" Chloe paused. Now that the balance of power had shifted and she was gaining more control over the situation, she started to notice things. For instance, staring through the fleshy mask's eyeholes, Chloe could easily tell that the woman's eyes were blue. Her gaze then traveled downward, registering the woman's white tank top, her skinny jeans and black boots… all seemed familiar, except… something was missing.

A leather jacket.

 _KSHHH._

Chloe heard a sigh come out of Darth Vader's plastic mouthpiece as the monster hooked her fingers under the mask and pulled. "Surprise!"

It was Beca—well, almost.

"You're not Beca," Chloe said immediately and felt a wave of relief. At least the real Beca was safe from all of this, because the real Beca wasn't the one she met outside the elevators. And, because she couldn't help herself, Chloe pointed out, "You're taller."

The fake Beca's jaw dropped in disdain. "Dammit! I knew I shouldn't have shifted back without the reference…"

"You also sound different, although that might be because of the broken nose," Chloe added snidely before turning to the woman in the Darth Vader helmet. "What's going on? Who are you _really_?"

"Well, um." Darth Vader seemed disappointed that she was the one asked. "Long story short, we're mutants. Like you."

"Yeah, I figured that one out, thanks," Chloe muttered sarcastically. She had no doubt that these two were unregistered; otherwise, they wouldn't need to hide their identities from her. "What do you want from me? Money?" she added, thinking of her high-profile adoptive parents.

"Tch," the fake Beca snorted. "We didn't take you all the way here just to ransom you off again, Red. You see, flying under the radar is sort of how we survive..." She fidgeted on her toes until she was a couple of inches shorter. "Okay, how's this?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to help you be better at impersonating my girlfriend!" she said before turning back to her more reasonable captor. "So if you don't want money, what is it? Do you have something against registered mutants?"

"No, not at all," Darth Vader said hurriedly. "It's just that we saw you and Beca a few weeks ago on the news—"

"And we saw what happened with those assholes," continued the fake Beca, who was still adjusting her own height to match Beca's perfectly based on a candid photo of her that she kept in her back pocket, "and let's just say... you caught our attention."

Chloe said nothing.

"They said you were a mutant. A Category Three."

"What's it to you?" Chloe shot back stubbornly.

The fake Beca laughed at Chloe's continued defiance. "Well, we checked Homeland Security's website—pretty useful, that thing—and we found your powers _quite_ interesting."

Chloe tensed. So they _were_ after her abilities. If only they knew—

"But Beca had said that you couldn't actually use your powers yet," Darth Vader said in an almost concerned tone. "Is that true?"

Chloe grit her teeth; even among the mutant community she was getting a reputation for being the mutant equivalent of an invalid. "What's it to you?" she repeated, though with a lot less bite than before.

"I think we can help you with that," the fake Beca smirked. It was far from the signature smirk the real Beca wore, but it radiated the same levels of cockiness and confidence.

"So let me get this straight," Chloe shook her head in confusion and regretted it when she felt the dull throbbing again, "you hit me over the head, kidnap me, and take me to the middle of nowhere… to _help_ me?"

"We're sorry about the _way_ we handled it—aren't we?" Darth Vader added pointedly toward the fake Beca.

"Of course I'm sorry!" the woman insisted. "I would never hit a defenseless girl. It's just that you refused to go outside with me and the clock was ticking so I had to take drastic measures. Do you know how dangerous it is to be around that school?"

Chloe prickled at being called a 'defenseless girl.' If she hadn't been caught by surprise, the impostor would have found herself passed out on Chloe's bedroom floor in seconds. But the fact that she _was_ caught by surprise made her think. "So your mutant ability is changing your physical appearance?"

"Yes, and before you ask, I'm not _showing_ you my real identity," the fake Beca said, wagging her finger.

"Well, can you be someone else then? I don't feel like calling you 'Beca.'"

"You can call me whatever you like, honey," she replied in a drawl and morphed into a ruggedly handsome man. The result looked slightly awkward, however, because he was now in clothes a couple of sizes too small. "Ugh," he grunted before shifting to a more appropriate size and shape.

The man's muscle mass shrank into his shortening bones; his waist tightened while his bust ballooned and his hips curved; the sharp definition of his face and jaw smoothened to feminine contours, and hair sprung from his scalp like a fountain. And the entire process took all of three seconds.

Running a hand through her now blonde hair, the shape-shifter winked at Chloe. "I go by Frankie. Apparently that's both a boy's a girl's name now." Noticing how Chloe ran her eyes around every bit of her changed physical form, she added cockily, "You saw how good at this I am? Stick with us and you'll be bending reality like a pro, too."

"What makes you think I even need your help?" Chloe demanded defensively. "I'm at Barden for a reason."

Frankie scoffed. "The facts aren't exactly on your side, Red. You'd been at that school for, what, three months when that news story ran? And if you'd had any progress since, you would have escaped by now. We didn't tie you up or anything."

"We're in the middle of nowhere, where the hell would I escape to?" retorted Chloe.

"We understand that the measures we took were drastic, but we really just want to help you achieve your full potential," the woman beneath the Darth Vader mask said gently.

Chloe narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Sure, she hadn't been in the "real" world very long, but she knew that favors were almost never given without strings attached. "In return for what?"

The two captors exchanged looks (as much as they could with one wearing a mask) and Frankie shrugged at Darth Vader as if to say, "Your move."

 _KSHH._ Chloe heard another sigh from the masked woman and turned to her expectantly.

"We want you to master your telepathy."

Chloe was genuinely surprised by the specific request. In fact, she had almost forgotten about her other ability, having been told to focus on telekinesis all these months because it was supposedly the simpler of her two powers. "Why my telepathy?" she asked curiously.

"Don't worry," smirked Frankie, "it's for a noble cause that I'm sure even you would agree with."

Darth Vader nodded. "You're going to put an end to the MRA."

* * *

"I'm telling you now, buddy, you won't find the first gen mutants," said Tommy. "Whoever was left after the whole SRA debacle probably either died or went so far into hiding they'd've died anyway."

"That's what we thought, too, but _you_ must have some idea of how to move forward on the case," Justin said hopefully. He didn't want his first ever mission as a newly inducted AMG special agent to be a failure. "Otherwise you wouldn't have agreed to meet with me."

"I never said I'd tell you where they were; I agreed so you could help _me_ finish _my_ case _._ " Tommy opened the shoebox and laid out a collection of newspaper clippings and handwritten diagrams on the bed. "You're familiar with the _government's_ side of what happened in the 80's, I assume? Targeting the world's greatest," he pointed to a photo of a bodybuilder, "and the top-secret military operation behind it."

Tommy handed Justin another photo of a group of people with the names of army generals and 'superhuman' civilians highlighted in the caption. Justin nodded. "The McKaddens filled me in."

"Really? Was AMG involved in the operation? Or did they just follow the trend of conspiracy theories like me?"

"They were told about the behind-the-scenes stuff years after it happened, but even then they were only told that it existed. No details," said Justin. "Does it matter?"

Tommy narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "Well, it matters to _me_." He picked out a tiny, square piece of newspaper from the box. " _I_ was lucky to have found this article in an old newspaper. It's a short piece on a Congressional hearing back in '85 to investigate military activity," he explained, handing it to Justin. "It doesn't reveal much either, only that a hearing happened. But if you look in the right places for the right document…"

He walked over to his cluttered desk and pulled out a folder. He spent half a minute rifling through it until he pulled out a piece of paper with a few lines highlighted. "One of the things the Department of Defense disclosed during that hearing was that they," he began to read aloud from the paper, "' _sought assistance from special individuals… and used them for research on human physiology._ '"

Tommy returned all the papers and news clippings with a satisfied look on his face. " _That's_ how _I_ figured out that mutants were taken in for military research a full _two years_ before the SRA even came out. And, obviously, the only reason they would conduct a research is to figure out how superhumans could be so, well, _super_ , and use it to their advantage. Pretty clever snooping, eh?"

Justin frowned. "If you'd known about this already, why didn't you publish it on your website? Get the word out for the mutant rights cause?"

"I've recently had to, uh, fly under the radar," Tommy admitted, turning away from Justin. "I was writing about the modern mutant lifestyle long before the whole Barden Institute scandal came out and, after the MRA, I just knew that history was going to repeat itself—and do _much_ worse. I couldn't risk people identifying me as a pro-mutant radical and triangulating my location from my next post so I had to drop it."

"A pro-mutant radical?" Justin repeated with a light chuckle. "There is no war against mutants going on here, Tommy. We're all just working toward a society where mutants and humans can coexist peacefully."

Tommy shot him a disbelieving look. "Do all of you at AMG really believe that? You're building an _anti-mutant weapon_ , for Christ's sake!"

Justin rolled his eyes. "Do I have to defend our work to you, too? We're _on the same side_. I just personally believe the only way mutants can be free from discrimination is if there's a balance of power."

"A balance of power? Your very _motives_ are unbalanced, Justin," argued Tommy. "At least, the motives of the people you work for are. Their right hand is working on suppressing the mutant gene to achieve this balance while their left hand is building an army of mutants to unbalance an even greater power—a _world_ power."

"You're overreacting," said Justin. "AMG limits the military's communication with the Barden Institute. We're all just interested in knowing how to stop mutants for very obvious public safety reasons."

"Shows what you know," muttered Tommy.

Justin shook his head. He couldn't argue with Tommy on moral intentions, but he could argue logical facts. "Anyway, the MRA prohibits experimenting with mutants and their powers," he said with an air of victorious finality. "So there."

"Do you really believe the MRA will work?" sneered Tommy. "Those mutants at Barden signed over their privacy, probably envisioning the same peaceful coexistence you are, but behind their backs people are already planning what to _do_ with them. How to _use_ them."

Justin refused to be swayed by Tommy's conspiratorial speech. "Once we create a suppressant, balance will be restored and no one would have to live in fear of what mutants could do," he reiterated firmly. "And that goes both ways: human _and_ mutant. That's what the system aims to achieve, and it _will_ achieve it."

"But you're not working with a system here," warned Tommy. "You're working with people, and _people_ don't always make the right decisions." He drew out one last piece of paper, this time from his back pocket. It was handwritten. "If you still need convincing, this my final theory on the mutant side of the events surrounding the SRA."

* * *

"How—?"

"Oh, come on, it's not that far of a dot to connect," Frankie sighed exasperatedly. "Mind control, persuasion—whatever kids call it these days."

Chloe opened and closed her mouth wordlessly. _Mind control?_ The idea was incomprehensible, not just because she couldn't even lift a rock with her mind for longer than a minute, much less invade someone else's mind, but also because doing such a thing was deeply _immoral_.

"Look, I know it's scary to imagine doing something so powerful given where you are now," the woman behind the Darth Vader mask said, guessing only half of what was on Chloe's mind. "But trust me, _I_ can get you there."

"That's not what I…" Chloe trailed off, considering her options. "What if I refuse?"

Frankie barked out a laugh. "I knew that was a possibility but I didn't think you'd be _that_ stupid to say it out loud."

Chloe glared at her in annoyance.

"We just thought that you'd be, you know, _desperate_ by now," said Darth Vader, sounding a little confused through the helmet. "I mean, you're not getting anywhere at Barden so—"

"So you thought you'd give me an ultimatum? 'Do as we say or you'll never learn your powers?'" Chloe crossed her arms. "How do you know the problem is with Barden anyway? What if it's me? How do you know I haven't lost whatever it is that makes me use my powers?"

The two were silent as Chloe unwittingly let out her insecurities along with her frustration. Deep down, however, she knew that it wasn't the case; her powers were still inside her, she just couldn't get to them. But, while she was admittedly disappointed with her progress at Barden, was it enough to convince her to give it up and accept the help of a pair of unregistered mutants?

"I just know," Darth Vader answered firmly.

"But _how?_ "

At this point, Chloe was only asking for the sake of putting up a fight, because she could already tell what the rest of their deal entailed. They would require her to stay away from Barden, away from anyone who could turn them over to the authorities for being unregistered. That was why they kidnapped her and brought her to the middle of nowhere; somehow they already knew she was desperate enough to agree. And she was.

But at the back of her mind Chloe also knew that, as dirty and dishonest as it was, she could always back out of the deal, or worse, double-cross them once she got what she needed. After all, what could they do to stop her once she could control both her telekinesis and her telepathy? Did they really trust her _that_ much?

Ultimately, however, it wasn't so much her captors' immoral objective that weighed heavily on her mind, as much as it was the thought of leaving Barden and everyone there to think that she had been hurt. Not to mention, there was no conceivable way Beca could find her in the middle of nowhere without a clue.

Taking Chloe's thoughtful silence as a sign that the she needed more convincing, Darth Vader raised her hand slowly. Chloe watched as the bag of ice she had tossed aside earlier slid back toward the basin, twisted in midair as through wrung by invisible hands, and levitated back toward Chloe without all the excess liquid.

Chloe took the bag and gingerly placed it at the back of her still throbbing head. "So you're like me," she said, her voice hiding the excitement she felt at discovering another telekinetic mutant.

The woman in the Darth Vader helmet nodded. "So trust me when I say that what they are doing at that school won't help you. Our powers develop differently, Chloe. Only _I_ can help you."

* * *

"As cool as it was to be splashed across the entertainment pages, that was nothing compared to the sense of patriotism and pride these 'world's greatests' might have felt if top military generals came to them and praised them for their superhuman feats," proposed Tommy. "And suppose they were told that they could help soldiers do better in the war against communism or whatever by allowing the study of their physiologies, their chemical make-up.

"I can totally imagine the posters," Tommy made an arc in the air with his hands, "' _We want you—and your definitely-not-freakish abilities!'_ I mean, really, who would say no to volunteering for a study that glorifies the volunteer?"

Justin raised an eyebrow. "You make it sound like the streets were lined with people signing up for this."

"Well, lucky for the government, throwing words like 'classified' and 'sensitive information' is enough to keep noses away from their projects, so these volunteers had to be glorified in secret, too. But lucky for _us_ , government secrecy is like catnip to conspiracy theorists."

"Sure," sighed Justin.

"Hey, some theories are just facts waiting to be proven," defended Tommy. "Anyway, let's say, months later, a small group of people cared enough to notice that some of these _volunteers_ never came back to society… Now, who could this small group of caring people _be_?" Tommy feigned a thoughtful expression. "Why, of course! The people who would have been interested in volunteering in the first place—the _superhumans!_ "

Tommy paused for a moment as footsteps passed his door. When they heard a door close and loud, pop music blaring, he continued his theory.

"So, picture this, they _stop_ being interested. They get cautious. They _don't_ volunteer to show off their special abilities to help the brave men and women at the frontlines anymore. _And_ they spread a rumor—maybe intentionally or unintentionally—that this 'study' was actually a freakin' _genetic cleansing!_ Hell, that'd be good enough for the entire superhuman community to never want to show their faces or their powers in public ever again, wouldn't it? And, as you can guess, that might be a _huge_ problem for the military, which could've been spending millions of dollars funding this research to gain the upper hand in, erm, let's just say, international _relations_." Tommy emphasized the euphemism with air quotes.

Justin had to give him credit; the guy knew how to connect the dots in dramatic fashion.

"So in comes this man," continued Tommy, mimicking a fanfare. "Let's call him Senator Robert Edwards—the man with a plan and a face like ham. So in order to round up more of these folks, he proposes that superhumans _register_ themselves, right? Maybe he reasons that, because these people have access to dangerous weapons, i.e., _their own bodies_ , they ought to be regulated. The moment he called them 'dangerous weapons' in—" Tommy glanced down to check the date on a newspaper clipping "—June 26, 1987, his popularity skyrocketed and the next two days had people clamoring for his bill to pass, which it did on the 28th. So all that _public hysteria_ they've been reporting on the news had happened before the SRA? Yeah, it barely lasted a weekend."

Justin recalled that Gail had said the part about addressing 'hysteria' was inaccurate. Could Tommy be right with his theory?

"But hold on, people aren't _that_ stupid, are they?" continued Tommy. "Wouldn't _you_ question a bill that claims people with _superhuman powers_ existed? That's like straight out of a comic book!" He gestured over to his closet. "In the end, as you know, Edwards' SRA was repealed— _not_ because superhumans' existence was disproven, but because ' _all people should be equal in the eyes of the law_ ,'" he recited from another paper. "Which basically means that just because someone's better than the average man at punching doesn't mean you're not _allowed_ to punch anymore—kinda like how we treat martial artists. Plus, virtually _no one_ registered anyway—let's assume that's because of the whole cleansing rumor, shall we?—and things sort of petered out after nothing exciting came from that brief controversy. So the issue had what, two and a half months total in the limelight?"

"But why didn't Edwards fight for it?" Justin asked, finding himself unable to stop his curiosity despite his skepticism.

"My theory is that, if driving mutants out of their holes was his plan all along, then putting more focus on the SRA would have had the opposite effect," replied Tommy. "It was easier to say that a young and eager senator had an overreaction than it was to open a whole debate on mutant existence and their rights—like the mess that's happening today. After all, Edwards just wanted a quick solution to the military's shortage problem.

"But, still, I was curious." Tommy stood up and began pacing. "So I finally understood _why_ the SRA had to happen and how it failed but… what _did_ happen to those superhumans that never made it out of the project? Did anybody ever bother to follow up? Then," he paused dramatically, "I finally hit a breakthrough a couple of months ago when I myself met a, uh, group of _special individuals_."

Justin frowned suspiciously. This was the second time Tommy had hinted that he was working with unregistered mutants.

"They told me something that somewhat validated a theory I was working on. They told me about a more _recent_ research project, where the subject, who had superhuman abilities, had also mysteriously disappeared from the face of the Earth," Tommy revealed with a faraway look in his eye. "According to my new friends, a secret government agency wanted to _replicate_ this girl's power. And this is a _fact_ now, Justin, no conspiracies in that statement. So I thought, hmm, replication… sounds familiar, doesn't it? Where would they have gotten the idea?"

He gave Justin a knowing look, and they both glanced down at the newspaper clipping of military personnel.

"My friends weren't very keen on the details but, from what I gathered, the girl in the second study nearly _died_ from what they were doing to her in secret. So, consider this sequence of events: when they ran out of volunteers in the 80's, the SRA was created. It failed, and then the first project died when they had no one else to study. Then, years _later_ they finally found someone who could be experimented on _without anyone knowing_. If the girl nearly _died_ from whatever they were doing the second time, and we still haven't heard a peep from the victims of the _first_ time this happened… then we can assume that those part of the first batch of volunteers—the first generation of mutants, which you are currently looking for—are all probably dead."

Justin was at a loss for words. A small part of him was still skeptical for the sake of skepticism, but a larger part of him was more concerned with what to do with this information and how it affected his mission. "So what now?" he asked slowly. "Are you telling me I've hit a dead end?"

"I did say I wasn't going to tell you where they were," Tommy pointed out. "But I told you all of this so _you_ could help _me_ , remember? Help me prove this theory and, hey, maybe you'll find the answers you need along the way."

"What do you mean?"

Tommy rubbed his chin. "I can prove my theory and weaken the MRA by finding out what _exactly_ happened to the superhuman volunteers being experimented on in the 80's. If things work out right, you might be able to get your hands on DNA samples, or at the very least their names, and go forward with your own little research."

Justin was still confused. "But why me? What can _I_ do?"

"There were striking similarities between what I _theorized_ could have happened during the first project, and what my friends told me _actually_ happened in the second one," said Tommy, resting his fingertips together. "I don't think experiments of this nature would be carried out by different people, and if that's true then there's a chance that whoever is behind the first is probably behind the second. And _you_ have ties to one."

"If you're talking about the DOD, you're hitting a dead end, too," said Justin. "They don't give AMG information—it's the other way around."

Tommy shook his head. "I actually meant AMG itself."

"That's impossible," Justin defended stubbornly. "They can't be involved with the first project, AMG wasn't even established then. Besides, the McKaddens would have told me the moment I asked."

"I'm not saying they were involved in the _first_ project," Tommy said carefully, watching Justin for his reaction. "But they do have _access_ to it; they probably just didn't know it." He took out an old, grainy photo, this time from his back pocket. "The building that AMG currently occupies used to be a federal defense building until—oh, look at that—1987."

* * *

"This is such a bad idea."

Chloe heard the deep growl from beyond the van's doors right before they opened. She was once again greeted by Darth Vader in her hideous sweater, while the shape-shifter this time appeared as a nondescript blue-collar worker. He was leaning against one open door with his arms crossed. "I don't like being back at the scene of the crime," Frankie said grumpily.

Chloe instantly looked into the round, plastic eyes of the Vader helmet with a fiercely indignant expression, as if to say, " _You promised_."

"Just remember what we agreed," the woman breathed through the helmet. "You can't tell her our plan. You can't take her with you. You can't give anything, or _take_ anything, that could lead her to our location."

"Yeah, you don't wanna be strip-searched by _these_ guys," Frankie warned, raising his stubby, calloused hands,

Chloe grimaced in his direction before turning back to the other woman. "What if she insists?" she asked with a hint of worry.

A noise that sounded like a breathy chuckle came through the mask. "Well, it's up to you to convince her, ho—ow much you need to do this."

Both Chloe and Frankie cast puzzled looks at the masked mutant over her odd enunciation. "Oh-kay," drawled Frankie. "Come on, Red. Let's not waste any time."

Chloe looked out the back of the van. Hours must have passed since her captors revealed their intentions, as the sun was now replaced by the moon peeking out from behind a cloud. The only other light source came from a solitary lamppost at the side of the deserted, curved road, on either side of which were thickets of loblolly pines.

"You know where to go, right?" Frankie grunted as Chloe stepped out of the van. When she responded with a blank look, he jerked his head toward the small forest. "Just keep heading straight that way and you'll reach the small creek that cuts through Barden's forest. Follow it in the south-south-west direction until you reach someplace familiar."

Chloe nodded slowly. She was terrible at directions but she didn't want to look like an idiot in front of Frankie, who was now taking a long ladder out the van and propping it against the lamppost to better sell their disguise as workers from the electric company.

"Good luck," said the woman in the Darth Vader helmet, poking her head out of the van. Chloe was a few feet from the edge of the thicket when, thanks to the silence of the night, she clearly heard the woman whisper to Frankie, "God. I almost called her 'honey.'"

* * *

A couple of minutes later, Chloe sighed in relief. She had fortunately picked the correct direction of the creek to follow and could now see the faint yellow lights on the mansion's back porch… and the security camera pointed directly at it.

Pursing her lips in annoyance, Chloe let her eyes roam across the mansion's outer walls, taking note of all the security cameras she could remember being installed a few months ago. She also noticed that the lights were almost all out; it must be later in the night than Chloe had originally thought. At that point, her eyes locked onto Beca's bedroom window and realized how her girlfriend had managed all those late-night visits without anyone knowing:

There were no cameras pointing _upward_.

Darting from behind one bush to another, Chloe inched closer to the mansion. Carefully avoiding the cameras' lines of sight, she climbed on top of the garden shed, where she could just about reach the second story's ledge and pull herself up. _Beca makes this look so easy,_ Chloe thought as she struggled to cling onto the wall. _Then again, she defies gravity._

After side stepping enough times, she finally reached Beca's window. Luckily, her girlfriend had managed to get the bed closer to the window without much argument from her roommate, but when Chloe raised a hand to lightly tap against the glass, she was surprised to see, through the moonlight, that Beca had grown nearly three times in size—and was now blonde.

"Dammit," she muttered. Beca must have decided to stay in Chloe's room, causing Fat Amy to take her place… because Beca was probably missing her so much that it made Amy sick. Chloe smiled and swooned at the thought, until she realized that her room was facing the other side of the building. " _Dammit._ "

Another couple of minutes later, Chloe was already breaking out a sweat while deciding how best to descend from the roof and onto her own room. Hanging upside down with her legs hooked onto the gutter, she took a peek through the windows and saw that Beca was indeed curled up on her bed, the one farther from the window, hugging her pillow to her chest.

Chloe thanked the universe that her untamed roommate enjoyed yelling various abuses out the window at students doing their outdoor physical exercises in the grounds facing their side of the mansion, because it meant that their window was perennially unlocked. Making use of her spectacular physical condition, Chloe reached down, pulled the windows open, and used her upper body strength to flip herself directly into the room.

Landing firmly on both feet, however, she was surprised to find, not her softly snoozing girlfriend, but a blanket flying straight toward her. Realizing that she had woken Beca, Chloe hurriedly attempted to shush her before the entire residential wing woke up. "Shh—" But after instinctively stepping forward, her feet got tangled in the sheet, and she lost her balance and fell. _"_ —oh shit! _Beca!_ "

* * *

Chloe felt hands pull off the sheet just as she was doing the same, and came face to face with a very serious-looking Beca. "Is it—is it really you?" the brunette asked cautiously.

Instead of answering, Chloe lunged forward and wrapped her arms around Beca's neck with enough force to knock them both onto her bed. Despite everything that had happened between them in the past twenty-four hours, Chloe could only focus on the fact that she was reunited with Beca after a record time apart. She hoped that the way they had left things would be long forgotten after what they both went through since.

No one gives hugs like Chloe's, and it was for that very reason that Beca lowered her guard and squeezed back tightly. "Thank God you're okay," she breathed, and then pulled back to check if that was indeed the case. "Are you hurt? What the hell happened to you? Who was—?"

Chloe put a finger to Beca's lips gently. "Beca, there's a lot to explain, I know. But first you've got to quiet down and promise me something, okay?"

Beca searched Chloe's eyes for a quicker explanation. "Are you in trouble?"

Chloe shook her head. "Promise you won't tell _anyone_ what I'm about to tell you."

"Chloe, you're freaking me out—"

"Beca, please!"

Beca exhaled through her nose before nodding reluctantly. "Okay, I promise."

Chloe leaned forward and kissed her. Beca savored the lips she had gone far too long without and deepened their kiss, until Chloe pulled back and whispered, "Okay. I trust you."

"Tell me what's going on."

Chloe readied herself for the conversation she had been preparing during the long ride to Barden. "The one who took me, the shape-shifter—"

"So it _was_ a mutant!"

"Yes. She—or he—has an accomplice, a woman. She's wearing a Darth Vader helmet so I can't identify her, and obviously there's no way to know what Frankie—that's the shape-shifter—really looks like—"

"Darth Vader—? What?" Suddenly Beca regretted demanding to know immediately what was going on, because what Chloe was currently saying made no sense to her.

"That's not what's important," Chloe said quickly. "Beca, the woman has telekinesis, too."

Beca's bemusement morphed into confusion. "That's… possible?"

"Yeah, didn't Luke say that about Jesse? Powers can overlap with each other if they're on the same development tree or something." Chloe smirked at Beca. "You're a trainer; you should _know_ this stuff."

Beca laughed at the brief moment of levity and she let slip, "Actually, we kind of all got demoted now that the Professor's back."

Chloe blinked in surprise. "The Professor's back?"

"A _lot_ of things have happened since you disappeared," Beca said grimly. "But tell me your stuff first."

"Right." Chloe was curious to know what had changed, but she reminded herself that she had something more important to tell Beca. "So the woman showed me that she was telekinetic, and she offered to help me. She said that our powers 'develop differently' and that I have a lot of ground to cover because of everything I might have been doing wrong. Basically, I'm never going to get it right here, which makes sense because Bree said that Barden has never had a mutant with psychic powers before."

"But if all they wanted was to help you, why did they have to kidnap you that way?" Beca asked in concern, recalling the chilling way Chloe was brought out of her own room.

"Frankie said it wasn't supposed to get that bad," muttered Chloe, rubbing the back of her head subconsciously. "She apologized but I gave her a broken nose anyway."

"That's my girl," Beca praised proudly.

"Yeah… you don't look good with a broken nose, baby."

Beca scowled when it dawned on her what that meant. "That still doesn't explain why they had to take you that way."

"Well, think about it—why else would they _not_ want to be seen?" A pause. "They're _unregistered_ , Beca _._ "

"Oh, right." Then something kicked in. "Oh, _no_ —Chloe, the FBI just put unregistered mutants on their Most Wanted list! You can't let them know you're associated with unreggies—the Alpha team is already being questioned about Luke and Stacie's involvement in the New York bombings!"

" _What?!"_ hissed Chloe, careful not to wake the entire dorm. "What the hell has happened since I disappeared?"

Beca internally struggled between catching Chloe up and getting to the bottom of what happened to _her_. "Just finish what happened to you first! So you met unregistered mutants who could help you with your powers and—" Suddenly it struck her; the reason Chloe didn't want her to tell anyone she had returned, the reason she was _sneaking_ into her own room in the middle of the night, and the reason she seemed to be in a hurry to get her story out.

Chloe was leaving.

It should have been obvious from the moment Chloe explained who her kidnappers were, and Beca couldn't blame her for her contentious decision to run off with them; after all, Chloe had been frustrated beyond relief over her powers getting nowhere at Barden. If what the unregistered telekinetic mutant said was true, then leaving really was Chloe's only option to fix that, unless she wanted to spend the rest of her life trying to figure it out through trial and error.

Chloe was being given the opportunity to finally live up to the mutant she was thought to be...

And Beca was all on board. "Okay, then I'm going with you."

Chloe smiled sadly and cupped her cheek. "I kind of love that I knew you were going to say that," she said wistfully. "But, Beca, you know why you can't…"

"No. I _don't_ know why," Beca said stubbornly, pulling Chloe's hand away and holding it in her own. "I don't see a reason why I can't go. I can live like unregistered mutants. I can fly under the radar." When Chloe continued to look apologetic, Beca shook her head. "You can't do this to me, Chlo. You can't leave me."

Chloe's eyes widened when Beca interpreted her decision to go as her leaving Beca, and she leaned forward to press her lips against Beca's in an attempt to reassure her that it wasn't the case. The kiss started out firm and steady—a promise and a plea to be strong—but after having missed the contact, they quickly melted into each other's bodies until they could practically feel their hearts beating in sync. And this time, Chloe didn't break the kiss until they both felt ready to let the other go.

"Oh, Beca," she whispered desperately once they did. "You know I love you—I love you so, _so_ much. I'm not leaving you, I promise." She forced Beca to look into her eyes. "Look, I admit that I don't know how long I'll be gone, how long it'll take me to catch up... All I know is that I'd be stupid not to try. And who knows, maybe—maybe I _won't_ even catch up after all these years of sucking at it," she added in an attempt to cheer Beca up. "But I also know, more than anything in the world, that I will _always_ find my way back to you. I always have, haven't I? And I know this is horrible timing for us, but all you have to do is wait for me. Can you… will you wait for me?"

To Chloe's relief, Beca looked up after a brief moment of resignation and tucked a stray strand of hair behind Chloe's ear. "I'll wait as long as I have to," she said. "But you know how impatient I am. I'm going to try to find a way so that I don't have to wait."

Chloe smiled but looked slightly confused. "What do you mean?"

"If unregistered mutants don't have to be in hiding, then neither do you, right?" Beca said determinedly. "We're going to find a way to fix this mutant issue once and for all—and this time, we're not settling for registration. We're going to fight to the end for _our_ freedom. That, I promise."

"There's the Beca I know!" Chloe grinned proudly at her girlfriend.

Eventually, though, their smiles faded into a solemn line. They took a break from looking into each other's eyes to quietly reflect on the challenging days, weeks, or even months ahead of them. Though the past few months had also been challenging—having to subject themselves to scrutiny, dealing through conflicted feelings of how to help their friends turned fugitives—there was always something to fall back on to keep their heads up. But now they were moving toward the future from separate paths and, if the past twelve hours were any indication, Beca knew she would be utterly lost without Chloe.

"Is there really no way we could…?" Chloe shook her head before Beca could finish her trailing sentence. "Then how am I supposed to know you're safe?" she asked, viewing the situation practically.

"Don't worry about me. No one can find me that far into the middle of nowhere—that's where they brought me, before agreeing to let come back to talk to you," Chloe added in response to Beca's unasked question. "I think they want me as isolated as possible so I can't just up and leave. And so that no one can find me."

Beca frowned. "And you trust these two?"

"I kind of do," nodded Chloe, with a faraway look in her eye. "There's something about them that tells me they're not bad people, you know? They're kind of goofy and—" She suddenly turned to Beca with a thoughtful expression. "Actually, there is one thing I found kind of strange."

"What is it?"

"I think they're _older_ mutants," she said. "Not like how Luke and Aubrey are a bit older than us, but like… an older generation."

"But you haven't even seen their faces."

"It's more about the way they talk," said Chloe. "Frankie used the phrase, 'whatever kids call them.' Why would she say 'kids'?"

"Aubrey says that sometimes, too," shrugged Beca, "when she's being all mother superior to the rest of us."

"And the other one tried to call me 'honey,'" added Chloe, remembering the unusual pet name that almost escaped the Darth Vader mask. "It felt like when you were called 'dearie' by the old lady who feeds the pigeons at the park."

"Hmm." Beca still looked unconvinced.

"Okay, how about this? She's wearing an argyle sweater vest."

Beca bit back a laugh. "Okay, okay, I believe you," she said in amusement. "I trust your instincts, but why does it matter if they're old?"

"C'mon, Beca!" Chloe chastised her girlfriend for not making the connection instantly. "How have you been at Barden for a year and _not_ wonder why everyone here is our age? If these two _are_ mutants of an older generation, then they could help Cynthia Rose with her research! Doesn't her team deal with DNA samples and stuff?"

"How do _you_ know about their research?" Beca asked in surprise. "We're supposed to be staying away from their anti-mutant weapon project."

"Jack and Gail told me," Chloe replied simply. She noticed that Beca had suddenly stiffened at the mention of their names. "What's wrong?"

Beca took a moment to weigh the benefits and costs of telling Chloe about her parents' arrest. Even though she knew she would pay for it later, she decided that Chloe was better off not having to choose between staying and leaving. "It's just that… now that everyone's out to get them, it doesn't seem likely that unregistered mutants would willingly give themselves or their DNA up to help create a _weapon_ to be used against us."

"No, but maybe I can convince them to. And _guns_ are weapons that can be used against humans and animals, too, but they're still used as a law enforcement tool."

Beca pursed her lips and sighed. The anti-mutant weapon's true intent was another polarizing issue that Beca would rather not spend her last night with Chloe arguing about—regardless of how naïve she thought her girlfriend was being about it. If Chloe wanted to change the world one mutant at a time, Beca wasn't going to stop her, but she _was_ going to do whatever it takes to protect her, especially if those mutants were of a sketchy nature.

She looked into Chloe's eyes, a surefire way to see how the redhead was feeling about anything, and saw only determination. It was tinged with a little sadness, most likely due to the requirements of her new 'training,' but there was not a trace of fear or even apprehension over what was to come. Clearly, Chloe was very eager to get somewhere with her powers now that these possibly older and oddly helpful mutants could show her the way...

"Hang on," she frowned. "Why are they helping you anyway? And how did they even know about you and your powers in the first place?"

Chloe looked away quickly to hide her readable eyes, which failed to go unnoticed by Beca. "They, um, well, they saw us on the news that day you got shot. That's how they figured out that I couldn't use my powers," she answered evasively.

"And why are they helping you?" repeated Beca.

Chloe ran out of things to lay her eyes on. "Beca, you know I can never lie to you—"

"What did you promise them?"

"Um…"

" _Chloe!_ "

"They want me to use my telepathy to control some important people's minds and make them get rid of the MRA," Chloe blurted out, all in one breath. "But I'm not going to do it!" she insisted quickly. "I'll just get them to teach me to use my powers and then I'll ditch them when I get what I need. I mean, they can't stop me when I can already… change their... m-minds… right?"

She slowed to an awkward stop when Beca simply gaped at her the entire time she was rambling. "Look, I know it's a really, really crummy thing to do but, _morally_ , it's the lesser of two evils, right?" she said, desperately waiting for Beca's approval.

"Oh, yeah, definitely," Beca replied distractedly. Then she bit her lip thoughtfully. "But, um… aren't you kind of missing an opportunity here?"

"What do you mean?"

Beca was careful in choosing her words. "I mean… if it were _my_ —well, I guess I would—I would actually do the mind control thing."

Chloe gave her a confused look, which Beca returned with her own.

"But it's wrong!" Chloe said plainly. " _Morally_ wrong—that's not the lesser of two evils, that's the _more_ of two evils!"

"The word is 'greater' but think about it though," argued Beca. "You'd be saving us a _shit-load_ of trouble if you could actually just reverse everything that has gone wrong! The lesser evil is the mind control part—the _greater good_ is peace between mutants and non-mutants."

Chloe scrunched her face in disagreement. "The ends don't justify the means, Beca. I won't take away people's free wills just to get what I want—"

"Not _just_ what you want," Beca pointed out, "it's what _majority_ wants."

"Well, then, this isn't the way majority should be getting what it wants," Chloe said firmly.

Beca opened her mouth to continue arguing but went with her better judgment instead and stepped on the brakes. Again, she reminded herself that an argument was not the best parting gift to give Chloe; she should have already learned her lesson the _last_ time she left Chloe in a huff. And besides, they were still far—unknowingly far, in fact—from crossing that bridge. Chloe still had time to think about the mind control plan.

In any case, Beca thought, it should ultimately be Chloe's decision, not anyone else's.

"I'm sorry," she conceded sincerely. "Your whole life, people have been trying to dictate what you should do with _your_ powers. I'd be no better than them if I didn't respect your decision."

Chloe gave a small nod but deflated a bit at Beca's apology. "Thank you," she said softly. "I know you're just trying to do the right thing and I love you for that. You know, you have such a big heart for someone in such a tiny body." She placed her hand over Beca's chest and sighed.

After a comfortable pause, wherein they both let go of their own ideologies just for that night, Chloe lay back and pulled Beca down beside her. "What are we doing?" Beca asked nervously as Chloe rolled to the edge to gather the discarded sheet from the floor.

"Relax," giggled Chloe, noticing how awkward her girlfriend had gotten. "I just want to cuddle until you fall asleep. I thought it might make it easier to leave if you were asleep…"

Beca rolled to her side to face Chloe and looked into her eyes, which were still as vibrant as ever no matter how dim the lighting. "How soon do you have to go?"

"When the sun begins to rise and I'm not back, they'll take it as me declining their offer."

Beca knew by now that there was no dissuading Chloe, so instead she turned her energy to deriding the people taking Chloe away from her. "They're not very good kidnappers if they're giving you a choice on that."

"Then I guess they're not kidnappers," Chloe chuckled softly. "Now turn around, little spoon."

"Nuh-uh." Beca waggled a finger in front of Chloe's nose. "You're the one leaving, which means I'm the one letting you go, which means _I_ get to be the big spoon this time."

"But you'll wake up."

"Then I'll wake up," shrugged Beca. "Even if it'll hurt, watching you walk away is better than waking up and finding you gone. Believe me."

* * *

When the time came for her to leave, Chloe didn't have to worry about waking Beca after all, as they were both still wide awake. Only kisses were exchanged, no words, before she climbed out the window, onto the roof, and back through the same path she took from the forest. By the time Chloe finally found the curved road and traced it back to the van, Frankie was impatiently drumming his fingers on the wheel.

"You sure took your sweet time," he said gruffly.

"Yeah… Where's, um—?"

"In the back. Hurry up and get in, we still have to make sure you don't have any traces on you."

Chloe rolled her eyes and let Frankie pull the doors to the back open. The woman in the Darth Vader helmet was sitting with her head against the wall, presumably asleep. She awoke, however, from the sound of Chloe climbing inside. "How did it go?" she asked.

The modified voice made it difficult for Chloe to tell if the woman was genuinely concerned but given the earlier slip of her tongue, Chloe felt slightly reassured that she was. "Let's just say this better be worth it."

"Was it really _that_ hard to leave?" grunted Frankie. "What's so good about this Beca girl anyway?"

Before Chloe could come up with a snarky retort, Darth Vader came to her rescue. "Leave her alone, Frankie, it's none of your business."

Frankie merely snorted and left to start the engine. "Sorry about her," Darth Vader apologized on her accomplice's behalf once again. "She likes to match faces with personalities. It gets quite offensive sometimes, actually, when you see how she stereotypes guys."

"So Frankie _is_ a she?"

Darth Vader shrugged. "Even I don't know, to be honest. She's always in her female form when it's just the two of us, so I'm guessing she's more comfortable as a woman."

Chloe nodded slowly, wondering if she could get the woman to accidentally reveal their ages. "How long have you and Frankie been on the run together?"

The telekinetic mutant didn't respond immediately, but Chloe continued to stare into the round plastic eyes of the fictional space villain's helmet. "Quite a while," the woman answered simply. Then she began to shuffle away and Chloe took it as a signal that their conversation was over.

"Wait," she said. Thankfully, her captor obliged. "Why won't you show me who you are? Or tell me your name? I'm stuck with you now; I can keep your secret."

They were both motionless for a moment, until the woman continued scooting out of the van. "Soon," was the last word Chloe heard before the door closed shut.

* * *

Absolute darkness and complete silence, Chloe learned, were excellent ingredients for a deep and restful sleep. She woke up naturally hours after the van pulled off the side of the road and found that her wrists no longer bound and that she was now lying on a comfortable cot, which was slightly cold but incredibly soft. If she weren't so eager to begin her new training and figure out who the two women really were, Chloe would have gladly sunk back into the bed for an extended sleep. But she was so she sat up, swung her legs off the bed, and let her feet touch the floor.

Cold stone.

After rubbing her eyes of sleep, she looked around the tiny room. Its walls were bare, save for a window by the foot of her bed and the wooden door across it, and the only piece of furniture in the room aside from the bed was a small wooden chest beside it.

"Seriously, how _old_ are these mutants?" muttered Chloe, briefly wondering if they had time-travelled from a different century. "Ha. Don't be silly, Chloe, time travel is impossible," she again muttered to herself as she stood and moved toward the window. Outside was, as expected, a vast expanse of nothing but nature. However, unlike the area somewhere en route to this place, a few hills and trees decorated the landscape.

Chloe's stomach suddenly emitted a low and prolonged rumble, reminding her that she hadn't eaten a thing in over twenty-four hours. The excitement of the 'kidnap' and the adrenaline it provided could only hold her for so long, and now she was starving. She left the room as quietly as she could, hoping to catch her helpful captors off guard and overhear them reveal something about their identities.

Their hideout, which Chloe assumed was what this cottage served as, was quite modest. Just like the bedroom she was placed in, it had bare walls, and only doors and windows. It also had a closed, fortress-like feel to it that made Chloe wonder if anyone had ever even tried to break in, considering they were in the middle of nowhere. But there was something else, something about the air that told Chloe this place was _old_. The walls were _too_ bare, the floor was dusty, and—

Chloe's investigative instincts were instantly shut down once the smell of buttery scrambled eggs filled her nostrils. Her head and stomach both ached in their earnest desire to satiate her hunger so, without much further thought, Chloe followed her nose and padded down the short hallway. Once she was through the small living room and in sight of the kitchen, her eyes immediately locked on to the deliciously yellow dish on the wooden counter.

But no more than a second later, she looked up and felt her face drain of blood. Her ears filled with a ringing sound and she grew mind-bendingly dizzy, and before she could understand what was going on, she fainted.

Later on Chloe would argue with Frankie that the reason she passed out was not so much the fact that she had reached the breaking point of her hunger than it was the fact that it was her mother serving it.

* * *

"Jesus—if I'd have known that would be her reaction, I would have kept the helmet on much longer."

"Nah, she's just hungry. Hold on… Here, Chloe, have a bit of toast..."

Chloe felt something stiff and crumbly placed against her lips and swatted it away angrily. Her vision was still out of focus but she could feel herself sitting upright on a couch with the two women on either side of her, one of whom—Chloe still hadn't forgotten despite her semi-consciousness—was her _mother_ , the long-presumed deceased Katherine Beale.

" _You!_ " she screeched, yanking her arm away from the woman's grip. "You're—I—oh, God, I think I'm gonna pass out again—"

"Relax, honey, just breathe—"

But Chloe only zeroed in on the term of endearment, which suddenly cleared up what had happened the night before. "Oh, no, no, no—you don't get to call me 'honey,' you're not my moth—" She whipped her head to the other side and stared at Frankie, who had returned to the blonde form she introduced herself in, remembering that she had already been tricked by a familiar face once. "If you're a shape-shifter, too, this isn't funny! How _dare_ you—!"

"Chloe, I'm not a shape-shifter!" the woman insisted, grabbing Chloe's hands to prevent them from hitting them as she waved them about hysterically. "I swear. It's really me."

Chloe stared at her. Going a decade without seeing her mother, or even pictures of her mother, made it difficult for her to believe this woman. Sure, on the outside she _looked_ like the woman she remembered, with her red hair (now closer to blonde than Chloe last saw it), her light, almost greenish brown eyes, and her sharply defined nose. The only things vaguely different were the way she styled and colored her hair.

 _A shape-shifter would have just kept everything exactly the same as I remembered if they wanted to mess with me_ , Chloe's conscience reasoned. Nevertheless, given her history with family and lies, she dryly replied, "My mother died ten years ago," as though serving up the fact for this woman to disprove.

"When? In an unexplained incident at our home in Miami?" Katherine said skeptically. "Funny, 'cause the way I remember it, _you_ died that day." She stood up and shook her head in confusion. "But if you didn't… what happened to you? Why didn't you ever look for me?"

Chloe gaped at her. "Why didn't _you_ look for _me_?" she countered, her voice and body rising as she confronted her mother. "I had a reason to believe _you_ died, but _I_ was—!"

"Okay, everybody, calm down," said Frankie, pulling Chloe back down, away from her mother, until the younger redhead relaxed on the couch. "Look, there's clearly a lot of mother-daughter tension here. You _both_ thought the other had died, you _both_ didn't bother to look for each other—you're not exactly winning family of the year, I get it. But let's not point fingers. Remember _why_ we're here."

"I'm not doing anything you ask until she explains everything," Chloe said stubbornly. Then, back to her mother, "I can't believe you would let me go my whole life without knowing you were alive!"

"It's not like you cared to know anyway," Katherine shot back, "obviously, since you didn't think to _check_ if I was really dead! So, what, was life in the Upper East Side too good to turn down? Did you not think I'd find out—"

"Hey, hey!" Frankie raised a finger at her. "You are a forty-year-old woman, Kate, you do _not_ get to act like a jealous teenager. And _you_." She turned to Chloe and flicked her on the forehead. "Cut your mom some slack. Because of the way we've had to live our lives, she only found out about you during your fifteen seconds of fame on national TV! You, on the other hand, had _ten_ _years_ to track her down—or at least make sure she was _actually_ dead, so what the hell have _you_ been doing, huh?"

Chloe avoided their eyes guiltily. She didn't think bringing up the whole Project and memory-implanting parts of her life would help anything; it might actually make it even more difficult for her to persuade them to help with the anti-mutant weapon. Besides, Frankie had a point. Chloe had to admit that she simply accepted it when Gail told her about her mother's death and didn't even ask to visit her gravesite. She simply… moved on.

Chloe looked up and saw that her mother had a similar expression of guilt. Frankie took note of both Beales' reluctance to actually explain themselves, so she rolled her eyes and declared, "Okay, let's make a deal. First, we're going to get some food in Chloe's stomach because, honestly, it sounds like we have a Rottweiler in the house."

Chloe blushed and put a hand over her growling stomach.

"Next," continued Frankie, "so that we _all_ get what we want: for every lesson or training what-have-you that you two finish, you each get to ask and answer a question dealing with this," she waved a hand around them, "family crisis of yours, okay? Do we have a deal?"

Too hungry and dizzy to carry on arguing for anything else, Chloe nodded. And Kate, seeing how pale and weak her daughter had gotten, quickly agreed as well. She reached over to the coffee table and handed Chloe her cold breakfast. "Here," she said gently. "Don't eat too much too fast. We've got a long day ahead and I can't have it start with you throwing up."

* * *

A little over an hour later, Chloe deemed herself physically and mentally capable to begin her training without freaking out about _who_ was giving her the training, and she followed her mother outside the cottage. She had a million questions running through her mind—and at the very top of the list was _why now_? Why was her mother offering to teach her to control and use her powers ten years _too late_ , when she could have avoided the whole Heartless fiasco that fateful night.

Chloe had only gotten to setting up the question in her mind when Frankie, noticing her expression, clucked her tongue and reminded her about their agreement. "One lesson, one question, one answer—respect the order, Red."

Chloe looked ready to argue that there were more important things than learning how to use her powers, but then realized how that would make her a tad hypocritical after her many hissy fits with Beca. So she exchanged exasperated looks with her mother and positioned herself a few paces before the woman, under a large flowering tree. "Okay, let's get on with it," she said. It was funny how she no longer seemed as eager.

Kate took a deep breath. "I've never done anything like this before," she admitted. "But I guess we can start with you telling me what you've been able to do so far."

"Nothing," Chloe replied dully. "Well, I can make a rock hover for a couple of seconds, or stop one from hitting my face, but I wouldn't say it's reliable; I never seem to keep a hold on it long enough."

Her mother nodded understandingly. "Let me guess, they asked you to _visualize_ the object moving to try to activate your telekinesis."

"Yeah but we gave up on that when we realized it wasn't working," shrugged Chloe, omitting the exception that was Charlene's last training. "So far, what seemed to work was clearing my mind."

Kate hummed thoughtfully. "And how exactly did you do that?"

Chloe thought back to her time at the Dark Margin with Jack, when she was first successful. "Well, I had to detach myself from the world—to reach this weird place in my mind where I saw things differently. Like, I stopped noticing everything except myself and the thing I was trying to move."

Kate nodded with pursed lips. "You were on the right track with clearing your mind, but you misunderstood one critical thing about our powers," she assessed. "Even when you were detaching yourself, you were still concerned with the _physical_ object, so you weren't completely detached."

"But how can I move physical objects without thinking of them in the physical world?" Chloe asked in confusion.

"The question isn't about object, Chloe, but about _being_ ," explained Kate. "Powers like ours—mutations of the _mind_ —are unlike any other because we delve into things beyond the physical world." Kate paused thoughtfully, her bottom lip between her teeth. "Think of your friends at Barden—think of Beca."

Chloe swallowed. Thinking of Beca was probably not the best thing to do, considering the last time she thought of Beca in the middle of training—not to mention the events of the previous night.

Thankfully, her mother quickly continued, "When she manipulates air, she doesn't manipulate what air _is_ , she probably only manipulates its _form._ Those are two different things—being and object. When Beca flies, she doesn't give _herself_ the ability to defy gravity; she probably only forms the air beneath her to propel her upward, or something like that. But with telekinesis," Kate raised her arm upward and brought down a flower from above them, "the movement comes from our _minds._ "

Chloe watches as the flower separated into petals in midair and flew in a single file around Chloe's head. "So… it's more of visualizing something happening than—wait, no." Chloe frowned and shook her head. Her mother had just said visualizing was wrong. "I'm still confused."

"Don't worry, I don't expect you to get it today," said Kate. "We're going through this step by step. And the first step is understanding that…?"

Chloe took the cue from her mother's tone and answered tentatively, "It's about being not object?"

"Correct," Kate nodded, and Chloe internally chastised herself for feeling elated at her mother's approval. "Reality bends itself for the mind, Chloe. When people think of reality, they think of what they can perceive with the senses. But there are also things beyond the senses—abstractions—that we can all agree are considered 'real.' For instance, ideas, events, and concepts. But aren't ideas and concepts just plain _thoughts_ that come from our minds?"

"Reality bends itself for the mind," Chloe echoed in realization.

Kate nodded. "Exactly. Our mutated minds allow us to tap into this particular phenomenon, to reach _beyond_ the physical world—literally, the _meta_ -physical."

Chloe winced. "I should have taken that Intro to Philosophy class with Beca," she mused.

Kate chuckled. "It's not as complicated as it sounds," she assured. "Basically we take our thoughts, translate them into a metaphysical command of some sort, and project that into the physical world. But in order to begin doing that, we ourselves must _be_ metaphysical. We need to ride on the same wavelength, so to speak. And what that means is similar to what you've already been trying to do: detaching yourself from the physical world, only this time with the specific objective of moving _toward_ the metaphysical."

Kate gave her daughter a moment to absorb all the information.

"How do I… _be_ metaphysical?" asked Chloe.

Kate hesitated, as though unsure if Chloe was ready to hear the implications. "This will be a lot to take in, Chloe, are you sure you're ready?"

"I don't think I have a choice," Chloe pointed out. Even Frankie gave a shrug in agreement. So, after a sigh, Kate said, "You'd need to let go of the physical world completely by understanding that there is _nothingness_ around you."

Chloe furrowed her brow. At first it didn't make sense to her—how could there be _nothing_ around her?—but she then recalled that Jack had said something similar about everything being _nothing_. In fact, even _she_ had an experience with what nothingness meant: _"It's scary, but the only way I can reach that feeling is if I'm indifferent to everything around me. To be at a point where only_ I _exist, where everything else is meaningless…_ _"_

"Nothingness?" Chloe repeated softly. "Is that like… meaningless?"

Kate cocked her head to the side. "You've felt it before, haven't you?"

Chloe nodded. "The first time I…" She trailed off, suddenly remembering how that conversation with Jack actually ended. She would have to stop caring about things, about people. "I have to be really selfish, don't I?"

"Sorry?"

"I have to be selfish to use my powers. Sociopathic, even. To live beyond the physical world, like you said, I have to not care about anything _here_." Chloe suddenly had a thought. "Is that why I haven't been able to use my powers? Because I care about a lot of things in the physical world? But that's not fair—!"

"Whoa, slow down!" Kate put up her hands to stop her rambling. "Don't think about that yet. Let's just take it one step at a time, okay? What have I told you so far?"

Chloe took a deep breath. "Being not object," she recited slowly. "Reality bends itself to the mind. Be metaphysical."

"Good. Now, I'm going to dissect what living metaphysically means for mutants like us," said Kate. "Let's start with nothingness first."

"I already know what it is," Chloe said at once. "It has something to do with angst, right?"

Kate straightened up in surprise. "How on _earth_ did you know that?"

Chloe was careful not to give away too much about her past. "A friend was talking about peer pressure and how basically everything we worry about as teenagers doesn't actually mean anything—then suddenly I was able to levitate myself. He said that feeling was called angst."

"You're farther along than I thought," Kate said with an impressed nod. "Your friend and I must have a lot in common. But yes, angst is the best way for someone to understand nothingness. Like you said, it's the realization that everything we busy ourselves with in the physical world—money, status, approval—is meaningless, which opens you up to letting go of it."

"Yeah, but that still doesn't help my problem," Chloe said in a huff. "I can forget money and material things, easy, but you can't make me not care about _people!_ "

"Well, you don't have to _hate_ them," reasoned Kate. "Just stay away from relationships that drag you back into the physical world."

"Stay away from relationships?" Chloe was aghast. "What's the whole point of living if you don't have people to care about?"

Kate folded her arms and shifted her weight. The action made Chloe feel like a child reprimanded for being stubborn, and she scowled at her mother. "Do _you_ not care about people anymore?" she asked accusingly. "Well, obviously, you didn't care about me enough to come find me—"

Both her mother and Frankie scowled at her, though for different reasons.

"—but what about Frankie? I mean what's the deal with you two anyway?"

Frankie's scowl morphed into a smirk. "Not to worry, Red," she said. "You're in no danger of becoming my step-daughter or anything like that."

"It gets easier to compartmentalize friendships when you're used to it," Kate said, rolling her eyes. "But _you're_ not used to it yet, Chloe, so you're going to have to learn first. And right here, right now is the best place and the best time for you to do that."

Kate waited for a particularly strong wind to pass before she softened her tone. "I know it sucks that we made you leave your everyone you care about behind, but there was a reason for that—and it's _this_ ," she said, waving a hand around them. "You need to be away from the world and _focus_ until you can leave it all behind and connect with the metaphysical world. If you're serious about mastering your powers, you'll stay here for as long as it takes for you to do that."

* * *

"All right. I think we can call that the end of lesson one," said Frankie, taking note of Chloe's conflicted expression. "You two can have your Q-and-A—but remember, just _one_ each," she added firmly. "I'll give you ladies some privacy."

Once Frankie's slender back had disappeared through the cottage door, Kate lowered herself slowly to sit on the grass. She made a motion for Chloe to join her and said, "I guess it's only fair that you get to ask first."

Chloe thought about the most important question she wanted to ask on her way down. She settled with, "So you're a mutant?" and hoped that the answer would explain everything else about her mother's secret life.

Kate nodded softly and ran a hand through her hair after another strong wind blew it out of place. Chloe vaguely remembered that mannerism of hers; she used to do it at the kitchen table when she was frustrated over something Chloe was too young to understand.

"I am a mutant, yes. But to be completely honest with you, I hadn't been in touch with my powers for a _long_ time when I had you," she confessed. "And, like I said, leaving the world behind is key to mastering your powers; so coming back to it means the opposite. It was a sacrifice, but one that I truly wanted to make."

"And when I started showing my powers?" Chloe pushed, hoping that her mother wouldn't take the one question rule too seriously. "Why didn't you help me control myself then when you knew what it was? How could you let him do that to me?"

Kate looked down guiltily and despite not seeing her mother's eyes Chloe could tell that this was something that weighed heavily on the woman's conscience all these years. "I am… endlessly sorry for that, Chloe," she said quietly. "I was a coward. I didn't want you to get us in trouble with the police any less than your father did so I just… I turned the other way."

Chloe looked at her with eyes full of betrayal. "You could have stopped him. Told him there was another way."

"After I realized that physically punishing you was making it worse, I _did_ try to stop him, believe me," pleaded Kate. "But I was too late and by then he wouldn't listen to me. So I tried to fix what I had already broken." Her voice softened. "Do you remember, early in the morning, when I'd unlock your door and bring you food—do you remember what I said to comfort you?"

Chloe did remember. Those memories were the reason she loved her mother and thought that she was the bravest and kindest person in the world; a thought that she was quickly rethinking now. "All you told me was to not think about it," she said dismissively. "Not exactly useful advice."

Kate shook her head. "I told you to _clear your mind_. There's a difference," she said. "You were a talkative child; it made sense that your mind was just as busy as your mouth was. And with your powers just starting to manifest, it was critical that you stopped fueling it with your thoughts."

Chloe gave her a look. "Still, you could have told me you had powers, too. I wouldn't have felt so different. So alone."

"Like I said, I was a coward."

"What were you so afraid of?"

Kate pulled at a blade of grass. "I think that counts as a second question," she mumbled.

Chloe reluctantly nodded. At least she knew what her next question would be. "Fine. What do you want to ask me?"

Her mother looked up and smiled sadly. "Was living with those rich folks really so great that you gave up on me so easily?"

Chloe instantly softened her stance and felt guilty. Her mother's question, and the way she phrased it, really told Chloe how the woman had felt to discover that her daughter had been adopted. But even then, Chloe struggled to come up with an answer because she herself wasn't sure.

Ever since she got her memories back after her Heartless was defeated, Chloe had had two versions of her childhood: the actual one and the one implanted in her Nobody. She had no doubt that her present disposition was more of a result of the latter, since her memories of the past decade included Jack and Gail and none at all of her real parents. So it was entirely possible that Jack and Gail had inadvertently pushed away the desire to connect with her mother, turning Katherine Beale into a figure of her distant past.

But Chloe didn't want to tell her mother that. "I didn't give up, I just… forgot," she finished lamely. She knew it wasn't a good enough explanation so she added, "I was pretty banged up after—after what happened, and the McKaddens took care of me. They made me forget the bad stuff."

Kate nodded, thinking that anyone who had gone through what Chloe had would rightly be traumatized. But she didn't know how literal her daughter actually meant by 'forget.' "I guess I can't really blame you for forgetting," she said. "I didn't exactly provide many happy memories for you in your childhood. It was probably best that you grew up in the care of someone who could give you that."

Chloe didn't feel right in letting her mother continue on believing that she was raised in a better household, when in fact she had spent years of her life virtually asleep and being fed good, but fake, memories. But Chloe also couldn't bring herself to tell her mother about the reality of her dark past, maybe because she was unsure how she would even react. Telling her that her daughter was tortured and almost killed probably wouldn't make her feel better about her decision not to teach Chloe to control her powers when she had the chance.

So Chloe kept her mouth shut.

"Well, knowing that you were well looked after is enough for me," Kate conceded, though with a hint of regret in her tone. "But before we continue, I want to officially say I'm sorry. Frankly, there are a lot of things I should apologize for but I think I'm most sorry that I wasn't a good mother to you—even before your powers started to manifest," she insisted upon seeing Chloe ready to contradict her. "Because, shameful as it is to admit, your father and I weren't exactly… expecting you," she confessed. "But his mother—your grandmother—insisted that we get married, only to die too soon after you were born and… well, we just simply weren't ready. Your father and I had a lot of problems... I think that affected the kind of life we gave you."

Chloe felt sick to her stomach at her mother's confession. In her heart, she could not blame her mother for not being ready. The sickening thought was that perhaps this was why she had difficulty remembering the earlier years of her life: there wasn't anything worth remembering. Even her own birth was not a happy memory to her parents. The revelation filled her with a strange emotion—sadness over the loss of something that was never there to begin with.

"I think... I need a moment alone," she said, rising from the grass and walking in the opposite direction of her mother.

She kept walking and walking, hearing no objection in the silence of the open field, until she felt far enough that she could fall back on the grass and close her eyes against the torrent of emotions flooding her.

* * *

A little over a week had passed by since Chloe's first lesson with her mother. Things returned to normal, albeit awkwardly at first, with a silent agreement not to speak about each other's pasts anymore than was necessary.

Chloe came to learn that life in the middle of nowhere was as dull as anyone could have ever expected, but she didn't complain. The pair of unregistered mutants seemed to be experts at living under the radar. Though there were hardly any electronic devices in the cottage besides the essentials, the residents of the small cottage spent their downtime efficiently.

Frankie used her unique ability to go out and work, while Kate tended to the small patch of arable land nearby where she grew a variety of small crops, which she would then sell at a village a couple of miles away. Chloe, who had developed an affinity for gardening at Barden, was more than happy to help with the latter.

And, to her own amazement, Chloe had improved drastically since she began training 'properly.' Once she learned to focus on being rather than object, she went from being unable to lift a stone for longer than fifteen seconds to sending one flying across the room—in circles, even—after just one day.

Unfortunately, that was only the easy part.

"Moving objects, especially _small_ objects, is the most basic form of bending reality," her mother had said, "because it only deals with an object's being in relation to space. That's just one relationship you're changing. _Modifying_ the object is trickier, because there's a whole bunch of molecules involved. The more complicated the change in reality, the more difficult it is for us to do."

Which, for Chloe, meant more meditation. She had hoped that those days of sitting in silence for an hour and a half were over, but apparently they really _were_ key to reaching the metaphysical world. In fact, Kate had even hiked up Chloe's meditating time three-fold, telling her that hour-and-a-half sessions were nearly pointless at her current level. Kate had also taught her daughter the proper way to meditate, something Aubrey and Jesse would never have been able to do for her.

While Chloe was glad to be learning the technical side of her powers and unveiling the mystery behind them, the fear of what was to come still haunted her sessions. Though much of the heat from their first lesson had now cooled, neither redhead dared to bring up what Chloe had to leave behind.

It was easy not to care about material objects and look past them in order to control their being—and the fact that she could now move objects easily with her mind proved that—but when it came to people with actual feelings and lives, Chloe was certain it would be impossible.

She wondered if part of the problem was that she clung on to a hope that she could have the best of both worlds—like her mother seemed to. So one night, while Kate was preparing their dinner, Chloe walked out of her room and approached her.

"Hey, Mom?" (The word came out less awkwardly than it did the first few days.)

Kate looked up from the vegetables she was chopping. "Are you going to ask me about letting go again?"

Chloe cocked her head to the side. "I thought you said you weren't a telepath."

"I'm not." Kate scraped the vegetables into a bowl. "Not for the lack of trying, though," she added under her breath. "It's just _that_ easy to read your expression. Plus, it's obviously what's stopping you from trying out your telepathy. You've been refusing ever since."

"I already told you I wanted to master telekinesis first."

"They aren't mutually exclusive, honey," Kate reminded her with a knowing look. "You can try out your telepathy even without mastery of telekinesis."

"Yeah, but…" Chloe had no excuse. "Fine. I guess I'm just surprised that it only took a week to learn something I've been bitching about for months. I mean, I had a whole goodbye thing with Beca—I thought it would take me forever to catch up."

Chloe caught her mother pursing her lips as she stood in front of the stove. "You shouldn't get complacent," she warned. "You've still got a long way to go."

"You mean because I haven't stopped caring about my girlfriend?"

Kate set the pot down a little too roughly on the stove. "Yes, actually," she said gruffly. "The whole point of your meditating is to learn to leave that life behind, Chloe—"

"I'm not trying to start a fight here," Chloe said hurriedly. "It's just… I know you said it gets easier after I master my powers but how are you so sure? You said it yourself, you stopped using your powers so you could focus on your family. And you only started using them again when you lost us."

Kate set the empty bowl aside and leaned her elbows on the table. She interlocked her fingers and took a deep breath. "I wish you wouldn't overthink this whole 'letting go' thing. You're _allowed_ to care about others, Chloe, just not the things that make relationships, well, relationships."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, not to sound shallow but, you know, _wanting_ things with the other person," Kate replied wistfully. "Going on dates… kissing…"

Chloe looked down at her mother's intertwined fingers. "Having a family?"

Kate heaved a reluctant sigh. "Considering the material and emotional demands, I don't think the idea is exactly compatible with your powers, and especially not with your telepathy. The stronger your mutated mind is, the more discipline it needs to reach its full potential—which was kind of why we had to take such drastic measures to keep you away from everything you already knew."

Chloe frowned thoughtfully. "But _you've_ had a family and relationships and stuff and _you_ can still use your powers after all that. Does that mean I can just turn it on and off whenever I need to?"

"No!" Kate looked scandalized at Chloe's radical idea. "Chloe, you have to take 'living in the metaphysical world' as _literally_ as you can. It took me _ages_ to figure out how to get my powers back after I thought I had nothing to lose." She turned serious. "Listen carefully, Chloe, you can't just hop between states as you please. If you do, it'll be like forcing yourself to balance between two worlds, and we both know that the physical world is way too tempting and the metaphysical too depressing. I don't personally know what happens if you keep flitting back and forth because it's too much of a risk to try. You could lose one or the other forever."

Chloe's shoulders slumped dejectedly. Her mother's warning reminded her of what Kommissar had said about the balance between the light and dark sides of the world. Kommissar and Pieter couldn't say in the the human world, which was where the light dwelled, for a long period of time without upsetting that balance. She wondered if it was the same for her.

"But just give it time," Kate assured her. "When taking control of the metaphysical world comes as naturally to you as breathing, you _might_ be able to have the best of both worlds. No promises, of course, but I mean look at me now," she gestured to herself. "I'm doing pretty well for someone who had just experienced the emotional storm of being reunited with her daughter.

"Granted, I am not as powerful as you are definitely turning out to be," Kate continued with a proud smile. "Maybe— _hopefully_ ," she corrected herself, "after a while, you stop seeing the physical and metaphysical worlds as separate, which I did only _after_ I learned the hard way that they _are_ separate, just like you are learning now. Just give it time," she repeated encouragingly.

Chloe hummed thoughtfully. "And how much time do you think it'll take for me to get to that level?"

"Well," Kate turned back to the stove, "nine years is a safe bet, at least for me."

Chloe groaned and rested her head on the table.

* * *

Despite the initial hopelessness she felt when she learned that it would take the utmost mastery of her abilities—and the better part of a decade—to be able to live a life in both physical and metaphysical worlds, Chloe was more motivated than ever. She was already progressing faster than she could ever imagine, so if mastery were the key, then she was determined to get it as quickly as possible.

And, using her faith that Beca would always be the light in her heart no matter what, Chloe was slowly and surely able to let go.

* * *

" _I'm pretty sure top-secret government documents are incinerated after a project fails," argued Justin._

" _And you would be right," nodded Tommy. "But for some reason, these particular documents were not on the list of items transferred out of the building in December 1987."_

" _It never occurred to you that it might be because it's confidential?"_

 _Tommy shook his head. "For logistical reasons, the GSA requires agencies to label and identify all documents, even classified ones. I think it was for that very reason that they never brought it out of that building."_

Justin scowled at the memory of that conversation with Tommy as he tied a handkerchief around his nose and mouth. Taking one last breath of clean air, he ventured further into the building's lowest basement, nearly half a dozen floors underground. Apart from housing AMG's own dated documents that were too risky to get rid of, the basement also held some junk that previous tenants had left behind.

Cynthia Rose, placed in charge of AMG's more covert operations while Jack and Gail were occupied, had been curious of Justin's request to enter the minimum-security area, also believing that anything left behind by the federal government was likely too unimportant to properly transfer, but she trusted Justin and his investigation.

"Where the hell do I even begin?" Justin whispered to himself, looking up at the tall shelves of dusty cardboard boxes. He shined his flashlight down the aisle and saw rows of shelves that ran as far as the beam of light did.

* * *

By the middle of her second week at the cottage in the middle of nowhere, Chloe was getting used to being in the metaphysical world. From taking tentative dips with her toe, she was now metaphorically swimming in it. She also realized that her mother was right in telling her not to overthink it, since living metaphysically was no different from otherwise living. She learned that what changed was only her worldview, which was only in her mind.

"Could you quit blowing smoke in my face?" Chloe said irritably, waving a hand in front of her nose to get rid of Frankie's puff. "And it's six o'clock in the morning, jeez. Give your lungs a break. Better yet, quit smoking altogether."

"If I blew the smoke up your ass would you quit nagging me about quitting?" smirked Frankie, though she aimed her next one in the other direction. "How's the telepathy going, by the way?"

"I already told you, I can't tap into minds yet," Chloe answered, stretching her arms up and sitting back on the grass to watch the sunrise.

Frankie took another drag and nudged Chloe's shoulder with her knee. "You're not purposely delaying your own progress until your girlfriend figures out a way to find you, are you?"

Chloe scoffed. "Getting into people's minds is difficult enough, let alone manipulating them. Cut me some slack."

Frankie dropped the cigarette and snuffed it with her shoe. "That wasn't really an answer."

Chloe knew that her mother constantly updated Frankie on her progress, so this line of questioning could only have one objective: to test her resilience against reminders of what she left back home. So Chloe gave her an answer.

"No."

"Is that so?" smirked Frankie. "You know what I think?"

"What?"

"Read my mind."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "I told you, I _can't_."

"Just try it," cajoled Frankie.

Chloe sighed and stood up. She gave Frankie one last look before closing her eyes and zeroing on the aura coming off of Frankie—something that she started seeing after engaging with the metaphysical world. She tried not to imagine Frankie as the smirking annoyance that she was in reality, but instead focused on her as a metaphysical being she could communicate with through the threads of their shared existence…

Suddenly, Chloe noticed a disturbance in the air and instinctively stopped the rapidly incoming object. She opened her eyes to see a one of her mother's trowels hovering two feet from her face. She lowered the tool telekinetically and glared at Frankie.

"What the hell? This thing is sharp!"

"I think your next lesson should be how to use your powers with your eyes open," the shape-shifter sniggered, before walking back to the cottage.

* * *

"Oh, my god…" Justin held the paper gingerly between his trembling fingers. The word 'confidential' was watermarked diagonally across the page and bold, printed letters at the top of the page reinforced that fact. "Damn... Well, at least I get to tell Tommy he was wrong."

* * *

"Frankie thinks you're ready to try telepathy."

Chloe drained her glass and wiped her mouth. "But I still can't get into her head."

The setting sun cast an orange glow on the kitchen and made Chloe think of how many sunsets had passed since she began training. She continued to be surprised at how quickly she was able to grasp the use of her powers and, as much as it pained her to admit it, cutting ties with the outside world seemed to have made a huge difference on the quality of her meditations. She was now able to last almost half a day without a worldly thought in her head.

"Well, Frankie has a strong mind," said Kate, taking Chloe's glass and putting it in the sink. "It's not as easy to penetrate the mind of someone who knows how to protect it, but she felt you pushing hard."

"Wait, she was resisting this time?" Chloe asked, surprised. She assumed Frankie was just messing with her, like she always did.

"Why did you think she threw the trowel at you?"

"It's Frankie," shrugged Chloe. "She's nuts."

Kate laughed. "In any case, she wanted me to make it easier for you tomorrow. I'll be sending out good thoughts, literally, and you should try to pick traces of it in the meta world."

"Why tomorrow?"

"You just finished a twelve-hour meditation," said Kate, patting her on the shoulder on her way out of the kitchen. "Even the mutated mind needs a break."

Chloe nodded, conscious of the warmth that spread through her shoulder from contact with her mother's hand. Ironically, despite the orders she received to _not_ get attached to worldly relationships, Chloe had already grown very fond of the dynamic of their little group.

Chloe and her mother had developed a respectable relationship after their rocky start. Chloe got to know the woman as an individual outside her motherhood role, and as a fellow mutant faced with the same challenges. She had a faint suspicion, however, that there was more to her mother's history than she was being told, but she also suspected that the suspicion was mutual when it came to her own history.

Frankie, on the other hand, had the unhelpful quality of reminding Chloe a lot of Beca, and she wasn't sure if it was merely because her first impression of the shape-shifter came in the form of her girlfriend. Frankie was defiant, cheeky, and sarcastic—qualities that could very well define Beca, but Chloe wondered why she found those endearing in her girlfriend but irritating in Frankie. The shape-shifter was insufferable but, in her own way, she made Chloe more comfortable.

Chloe believed that she was a good enough judge of character that it didn't make sense that these two outlaws would hatch a plan to manipulate the minds of the people behind the MRA. More than once, she found herself comparing them to Luke and Stacie, who were also against the law but wouldn't do such a thing as take away a person's free will—as far as she believed.

Chloe shook her head instinctively, reminding herself that she shouldn't be thinking of her friends. But Kate noticed the action and paused on her way out. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," Chloe replied quietly. "I was just thinking… if my mind is strong enough to pick up traces of your thoughts, that means I'm getting deeper into the meta world. And that means we're almost done here."

Kate turned around and took a seat on the stool beside Chloe. "I don't think it will be that easy, Chloe. You're only beginning to read thoughts; you've still got a lot to master before you can actually manipulate them." She paused. "But yes, once you can, we can proceed with what we agreed."

Chloe's stomach churned with guilt. She had known from the very start—though she kept it locked away at the back of her mind—that she was going to bail on her captors after she got what she needed from them. But with the combined revelation of who these captors turned out to be, and of the mechanics of her powers, things had turned out more complicated than Chloe had anticipated.

For one thing, if she somehow escaped and returned to Barden before even mastering the metaphysical world, she could lose everything she had worked for, since Barden and everyone there represented her physical world. It seemed that her own powers were forcing her to have no choice but to stay until being meta was second nature.

Chloe's fear was that, at some point in the process of achieving that, she would become so numb to people's feelings that performing the mind control wouldn't bother her at all anymore. It was no wonder that Frankie was so confident that Chloe had accepted their mission wholeheartedly; Kate must have told her that because of the way her powers were wired Chloe would end up having no choice.

And there was the other problem: if she went through with her original plan, Chloe would be double-crossing her own _mother_ —and so soon after getting their relationship back on track. Worried that harboring these thoughts would adversely affect her future meditation, Chloe had decided that, if there were ever a chance that she could persuade her mother against her plan, she would take it.

And that chance was now.

"I don't think I want to go through with the mind control," she blurted out, grateful that Frankie was out of the cottage. "I'm sorry, Mom, but I have to get it out now before it's too late. This is _not_ the right thing to do."

Chloe had absolutely no idea how her mother would take it. But Kate's response ended up being short and simple: "Why?"

"It's just not right," she repeated.

"I understand the immorality of taking away someone's free will," Kate said curtly, but not angrily, "but if it prevents the taking away of an _entire peoples'_ free will, I would say it _is_ the right thing to do."

So both her mother and her girlfriend thought it was the lesser of two evils. Chloe looked up, ready with the same argument she gave Beca, but before she could say anything, her mother asked in a half-disbelieving, half-amused tone, "How do you not _feel_ what the rest of us are feeling? Mutants are being pushed into a corner—fear mongering and discrimination are forcing them to do things that are against _their_ wills!"

"They are not _forced_ to do anything, we made sure the MRA would—"

"You put too much faith in laws, Chloe, you're practically using it as a crutch," accused Kate. "Laws can easily change, especially controversial ones like the MRA. Amendments are coming by the dozens after the President declared us Public Enemy Number One. The holes in your safety net are getting much larger, Chloe. Even Barden isn't safe from scrutiny."

Chloe shut her eyes and tried not to think about her friends, how she just left them to deal with all of this on their own—how Beca must be itching to leave Barden, thinking that there was nothing left to keep her there.

"And yet you can _confidently_ say that if you had the power, you _wouldn't_ do what you can to reverse this?"

Keeping her eyes closed, Chloe did what she had been doing almost nonstop for the past two weeks: she cleared her mind. She let go of thoughts of the MRA, of her friends, of her mother and Frankie, and of their plan to save the mutant race.

But she didn't reach out into the metaphysical world completely. She kept just far enough to not let worldly things affect her, but close enough to it to understand something… something greater than the nothingness she had been trained to see.

 _Being._

"We are mutants," Chloe said solemnly. "We were born with these differences and the way we exist in this world is to _be_ mutants, to _use_ our powers." She opened her eyes. "But the answer to what it should be used _for_ —the reason we should all live our lives—is something that comes from each of us individually, not from the world."

Up to this point, Chloe had avoided talking about her own past because didn't want it to affect her mother in the wrong way. But now she may have found a use for it after all.

"Mom, aside from the fact that there was no one to teach me, there is another reason it took me so long to learn my powers," she began. "Which also kind of explains why I didn't—why I _couldn't_ look for you all those years."

Her mother kept respectfully silent.

"After I lost control that night and thought you died, I ran away. And I don't exactly know how but I got caught up in this… project." Chloe focused her eyes on the clock above the fridge. "Some people wanted to know how my powers worked so they could turn it into an alternative energy source. They studied my blood and everything but I couldn't—I couldn't use my powers. I think I was too traumatized to."

Chloe spaced out for a moment. Her memories of those years were still hazy but she could clearly recall the feeling of not being able to do what your own mind wanted to.

"Eventually, they thought physical torture would help trigger my powers since—"

"They _tortured_ you?!" Kate suddenly cried out and angrily clenched her fist. "Chloe, the people behind that project are almost definitely the same people behind the MRA! How can _you_ not—?"

"Hate them?" finished Chloe. "I did one better, Mom. I _forgave_ them. You know why? Because I understand—now more than ever," she added, her mind still fresh with insight, "that no matter the tension between mutants and non-mutants, we are all still _human beings_. We exist in the same capacity. We share the same world and the same desire to do something great with our lives. But, most importantly, we share the quality of being flawed.

"The man who tortured me did it because he wanted to change the world for the better; the MRA was written because the government cares about protecting its citizens. Terrible things happen all the time because people make mistakes. And I know that the ends don't justify the means but, the thing is, _this isn't the end_. There's still time to correct some mistakes.

" _I_ still believe in fighting the good fight," Chloe declared. "I can't do what you're asking me to do, even when the time comes, Mom, because I _still_ hope for a better way. My life has been tainted by _so_ much darkness, but I will never lose faith in the light. You shouldn't either."

* * *

"There was no cleansing—the volunteers weren't the ones dying during those experiments, it was the _soldiers_ who were injected with the replicated mutant gene!" Justin huffed as he made his way back to the above ground level of the building while carrying dusty old cardboard boxes filled with the documents he hadn't finished reading yet. "The non-mutant volunteers were let go immediately after they found nothing special, but the _actual_ mutants were kept in labs while scientists tried to isolate the origins of their powers— _just like_ _I'm doing_."

Justin shook his head in disdain. "But they were more reckless. Even without enough scientific backing, they went ahead and created a serum out of the mutants' blood, and they injected soldiers with it—but obviously all experiments were failures."

He lowered his voice as he passed civilians in the main lobby on his way to the private elevator. "When the mutants found out what was happening to the soldiers, they wanted out; they felt that the blood was on _their_ hands. But even if the project was failing, the military wouldn't let them go—they couldn't risk letting anyone else know about what they were doing, and they didn't trust the mutants not to blab.

 _"That's_ why no mutant ever walked away from that project! Before it was officially closed, it was ordered that they all be killed."

* * *

Kate looked at her daughter with a mixture of admiration and pity. "Oh, Chloe," she said softly. "You have such a beautiful spirit—even after all the terrible things that have happened in your life. I have to say... I'm jealous."

Chloe frowned worriedly, surprised that she was unable to convince her of the goodness of humanity.

But Kate was more experienced than her daughter with what humanity was truly capable of. "Since you were honest with me about your past, I think this is the right time for me to be honest with mine..."

Kate sat across Chloe and began, "I hadn't been using my powers for about five years when I got pregnant with you. It wasn't because I wanted to start a family; it was because I _had_ to stop. Chloe, have you ever heard of the SRA?"

Chloe nodded at once. "It was the first MRA, years ago, right?"

"I was a part of the generation that was affected by that law. When Chloe seemed confused, she continued, "I got my first taste of how being different could really change your life at thirteen. I can't say I had a good handle on my powers by then, but at least I could keep it under control. You see, I was kind of a weird and lonely kid," she added with a quirk of her lips, "which was probably why it didn't come in bursts like yours did. But after puberty my powers only made me weirder in the eyes of my peers. And lonelier. So when a man drops by my house at dinner and tells my parents he thinks there's something special about me—that I'm _gifted_ or something—I had no trouble believing him.

"He promised me friends. He said there were others like me and that we were all being rounded up so we could be trained to help the country. I thought it was the coolest thing," she mused. "So I went to New York and, just as he said, there _were_ others like me. Different abilities, but still… the same, you know what I mean?"

Chloe nodded softly.

"But something bothered the older mutants there—Frankie was one of them," revealed Kate. "For one thing, we were being trained like military soldiers when we didn't sign up to _be_ in the military. But what really didn't sit well with a lot of us was the fact that it felt like we were being kept secret, hidden away from the world. We thought we were finally going to be treated like _normal_ people.

"It turned out that gathering us up to train our powers wasn't their actual objective. They wanted to _study_ us, our powers, so they could use it for themselves. Sound familiar?"

Chloe swallowed.

"They wanted to take a bit of each of our powers and put them together into some sort of super human solider. Unfortunately, that didn't end well for the soldiers themselves. They died," she said, in answer to Chloe's apprehensive look. "Once we found out, we couldn't bear to continue on with whatever sick project they had us involved in. But we made the mistake of telling that to their faces. With a failed project, half a dozen freaked out mutants, and the government's reputation on the line, they came up with an easy solution."

"They tried to _kill_ you?" gasped Chloe.

"We managed to escape, except for one," Kate said sadly. "After that we all agreed it would be easier to split up and keep low profiles. Soon, the SRA came but we all knew it was bullshit, just another way for them to get to us. So we kept our heads down and carried on as best we could. Somehow I ended up in Florida, where I met your father.

"Ten years later, when I found out that you had powers, too, I freaked out. It didn't help that you were this cheerful little ball of sunshine," she added with a smile. "You were very unlike me so I knew your powers would be difficult to hide. After the incident when you lost control, I knew it was only a matter of time before my name would be in the papers and whoever was behind those experiments would track me down so… I fled.

"Before we mutants split up, we made sure that we could always find a way back to each other if we ever needed to. So I went straight to Frankie. This cottage that we're in?" She gestured around them. "One of five we have in remote places scattered across the country. And that was also my reason for not looking for you. I spent the first two years laying low while Frankie checked the papers and missing persons. It made no sense that you just disappeared so I assumed you were gone—'beyond-this-world' gone.

"But the point I really want to make, Chloe, is that _history is repeating itself_ ," she said seriously. "I don't have proof but I am certain that these are the very same people doing the very same things—the soldier experiment, the SRA, _your_ torture, the MRA. Sure, they might be past creating some super soldier today, but they aren't past using mutants to their advantage.

"You said that our flaws make us human, that our mistakes make us human. But these people aren't interested in correcting their mistakes, Chloe. They're _repeating them_. Without remorse." Kate stared into her daughter's innocent eyes. "I really admire your faith in humanity, but these people… they can't be considered human. They don't deserve your faith."

* * *

" _Jesus… Well, what about the files—the data from the testing?_ "

Justin waved away over-eager interns' offers to help him with the boxes. "Missing. Someone's been through these boxes, Tommy, I could tell. We're not the only ones looking."

There was a pause on the other end. " _I think I have an idea who that someone might be. But you're not gonna like it._ "

Justin skidded to a stop right in front of his office. "You're only telling me this _now?_ Well?!"

" _It might be with the people behind the second project. They could have dug it up when they wanted to do it again._ "

"It's back with the military?"

" _No… I meant Jack and Gail McKadden._ "

Justin frowned. "But they would have told me if—hang on, did you say _they_ were the people behind the _second_ project? Which conspiracy is _this_?"

" _It makes sense, J. They bought the building where it happened the first time and they were told about the first project. But there's something else I haven't told you... You know that daughter they have? The one enrolled at Barden?_ She _was the girl in the second project. That's how they met."_

Justin dropped the boxes to the floor and slumped against his door in shock. "But—but you said she nearly died from what they were doing!"

" _Well, that's the dark part. If they did take the files and didn't tell you on purpose, then shit. But you know what's an even bigger shit? If the files were taken by someone we_ don't _know who plans to use it against mutants. Because, boy, are we in trouble then."_

Justin pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. This mission was turning out to be a wild goose chase that presented more questions than it answered. He didn't have much time to think, however, since the elevator doors down the hallway opened again and half a dozen FBI agents filed into the hall.

"Agent Paul Paulson, FBI," the man at the center declared to the security personnel flanking the way further up the hall.

"Gotta go, the FBI are here," Justin muttered into his phone, hanging up before Tommy could get a word in. "Can I help you?" he said in his toughest voice.

"Why yes, young man," Agent Paul said smoothly. "You can get the hell out of here."

"What the—?"

The elevators dinged open once more and Cynthia Rose came walking out, looking furious. "What's going on here? The lobby guards called—"

"Ah, Ms. Adams." Agent Paul turned and gave her an insincere smile. "It's a shame you weren't at the office the other day. I would have liked to have seen you face as Jack and Gail walked out in handcuffs."

Cynthia Rose looked unaffected. "What do you want?"

The agent took out a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and held it out for her. "That is a court-ordered injunction," he said smugly. "You are to stop whatever you're doing and vacate the premises until the McKadden's hearing at the end of the month. Move along now."

"Hang on," said Justin. "What about our research—?"

"Clearly the research into a mutant suppressant is going nowhere with AMG's employees at the helm," Agent Paul said patronizingly. "An independent team of scientists and engineers will take over from here."

" _I'm_ an independent scientist," Justin pointed out defensively.

"But not unbiased," the agent countered. "I would suggest," he added, when Justin glanced nervously at his office, "that you not complicate things further for yourself and leave all your work _as is._ Our team can surely pick up where you left off."

Justin looked at Cynthia Rose hopefully. He could practically see the cogs turning in her mind but, unfortunately, they must have come up with nothing because she gave a small shake of her head.

"And as for you, Ms. Adams," Agent Paul turned to her, "you're lucky your bosses lawyered up heavily to keep you out of jail, but keep in mind that you're walking on _very_ thin ice."

"Noted," she replied unemotionally.

"Good. Now, there are confused AMG employees in the lobby whom you might want to assure haven't completely ruined their lives and careers by working for a company with an overt mutant agenda."

Cynthia Rose finally prickled at that.

"Well," the agent made a show of looking at his watch, "as the saying goes, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here."

The last thing Justin saw before the elevators closed were the dusty old boxes containing twenty-year old confidential government documents. He gulped. "What the hell are we gonna do now?" he asked the woman beside him.

" _You_ are going to go home," Cynthia Rose answered simply. She didn't look at him, only up at the digital display showing the current floor number.

"What?"

"If you value your career—and your future in general—you'll stay away from this and keep a low profile."

"But—"

"The last civilian defense of the mutants has just fallen," she said ominously. "They'll head for Barden next. And trust me, you don't want to be on the losing side of this war."

Before Justin could say anything to contradict her, the elevator doors opened to the lobby and they were greeted by the noise and sight of displaced employees loudly demanding for an explanation.

* * *

 **P.A.Q.'s (Preemptively Asked Questions):**

Why didn't Tommy just ask Lilly to get the documents from the basement?

Lilly cannot open portals to places she cannot 'see.' Since Stacie had been at AMG, she was able to visualize the room where they stole the weapon blueprints, but Stacie had never been to the basement level.

What's the deal with Chloe's powers?

Originally, this was where Heidegger's philosophy came in, but I got lazy and simplified it. Basically, Chloe has to be in a state similar to the Buddhist Enlightenment – where everything worldly is discarded – in order to access her powers. That presents a problem for Chloe, who worries that getting there will mean breaking down worldly relationships, particularly the one she has with Beca.

* * *

 **Response to Reviews:**

 **Psychic Guest** (Jun. 7) - I would offer to wrap your knuckles in bandages but after a month, I'm guessing they've healed lol. Now you know that the other guy was Tommy! Who else would be nerdy enough to dedicate a blog to mutants? You are right to be suspicious and, tsk, Smith is probably getting his ego stroked with all the authority. To answer your shape-shifter question, no. As Chloe said, being a mutant is something you're born with so it can't be learned just by looking like a mutant hehe. Nope, that's true, and probably – in response to Chloe, KP, and Jack  & Gail. (I'm just realizing that A LOT of things happened last chapter.) OMG Emily, yes! It was a difficult writing choice but one I was happy to make lol. Let's see what Luke and Stacie have planned in the next chapter... because yes! They will be reuniting soon. Yeah, I was thinking of places KP could appear from and the wardrobe was literally right there. Now you know what happened to Chloe! Tan-tun-tuuuun – IS Charlene the villain behind the villain? We'll see. Those _are_ a lot of theories! One thing was made clearer in this chapter though: the shape-shifter that kidnapped Chloe doesn't seem to be evil haha. Argh, I keep waiting for Staubrey to happen myself! The part's written but it's taking forever to get to it!

 **xcombixgirlx** (Jun. 8) - I did feel a wave of contentment when I changed the categories lol. What a nice thing to say! :) Thanks but maybe it's for the best that Sci-Fi/Fantasy fans have this small story to follow. I'm personally not a fan of this genre either (ironic, huh) but I sorta enjoy building this alternate universe and injecting as much social commentary as I can lol. I've now dropped the bomb on Chloe's powers. Let's see how that goes... If only Chloe could read John's mind and get to the bottom of his suspicious behavior! Yes, let us not forget that other characters have feelings, too lol. Aubrey has her own way of dealing with all this. I like to think that the 'original' 6 (B, J, A, L, S, CR) really bonded after Season 2, so when one needs help the others are always there. :) I added the Amy and Beca bit for a little light-hearted fun after such a depressing moment haha.

 **Thuh Tank** (Jun. 10) - Incidentally, someone had predicted – way back in Season 1 – that there was a shape-shifter in our heroes' midst. Hmm... (Lol, unless that wasn't the plot twist you meant!)

 **Maggie** (Jun. 9) - Thank you! I'm always self-conscious that my chapters are getting more and more boring because I deal with a non-romantic plot. You're right! The change of pronouns was intentional, and Charlene IS a shape-shifter. Frankie is also a shape-shifter, and I also switch the pronouns whenever appropriate.

* * *

 **A/N:** As I mentioned at the start, there are two separate timelines here, since Chloe's training spans two weeks. Justin's adventures happen within a couple of days after the previous chapter. Since so many things are happening, I focused this chapter on just Chloe, with a anti-mutant weapon side story to fill the breaks, which means next chapter will probably have little or no Chloe. I totally have newfound respect for George R.R. Martin. Writing multiple plots if T-U-F-F.


	26. A Confluence of Constructs

**A/N (optional read):** Greetings to anyone still reading this story! Thank you for that and I apologize for my long absence. As I mentioned in my last note, writing multiple plot lines was more difficult than I expected, and adding to that difficulty was my decision to  not end it with Season 3. I had to change my planned ending to allow another story arc (I know, I know—you're asking, "But why? Nobody's asking for it!" to which I respond, "Well, there might be something in PP3 I could work with.") which meant having to figure out how to tie it all together without changing the plot I had already established.

Other than that reason, I focused on finishing my other stories, and then I fell into a lack of motivation to write—which is an affliction worse than writer's block, in my opinion, because having the ideas but not the will to write them is pure agony. When I got it back, I returned to all 25 chapters of The Light and spruced up the writing, so if you want a _complete_ refresher, this would be the best time to do it. If you're not eager to read all over again, I hope the next section will be just as helpful.

* * *

 **Previously...**

A mysterious explosion in Manhattan—the third among a series of attacks on major cities—is officially blamed on unregistered, militant mutants. As Cynthia Rose investigates the true source of the blasts, Jack and Gail are arrested for dubious charges. Under this pretense, AMG is relieved of its duty to build the anti-mutant weapon. The research, including valuable documents secured by Justin and Tommy that could discredit the Mutant Registration Act, is taken over by the FBI. Luke, Stacie, and Cynthia Rose, recognizing that the fall of AMG virtually signals open season on all mutants, seek a reunion with their old friends.

Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the battle with Heartless that had appeared after the explosion, Beca and Chloe get into an argument about the necessity of Chloe learning her powers. Their fight is short-lived, however, as the following day it is revealed that Chloe has been kidnapped by a shape-shifter. Before Beca could get to the bottom of her girlfriend's disappearance, the FBI invade Barden and demand, in a private meeting eavesdropped on by Emily and Benji, the Alpha team help track down their former schoolmates. Despite their 'innocent until proven guilty' reasoning, Aubrey, Beca, and Jesse are chastised by the Professor, who has returned from his worldwide tour preaching about mutants, for not cooperating with the FBI and for letting the quality of training at the Institute deteriorate.

As a last resort, Beca seeks help in finding Chloe from Kommissar and Pieter, who have been tracing the leak to India, and yields no results. Later that night, Chloe reappears and explains that her kidnappers were unregistered mutants, one of whom has similar telekinetic powers, offering to train her correctly. With their previous fight forgotten, Beca is hesitant to argue with Chloe once more about a moral issue: should Chloe fully grasp her telepathy, was it right for her to use it against their enemies? Instead Beca leaves the decision to Chloe, while at that very moment, on the other side of the mansion, Charlene undergoes a transformation.

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Six: A Confluence of Constructs**

" _I'm walkin' on sun-shine! Whoa-oh—!"_

Aubrey frowned and paused with her fist half raised, a breakfast tray balanced on the crook of her free arm. After Fat Amy had come into the dining hall with news that a moping Beca had hijacked her room the night before, she decided to bring Beca some breakfast in bed, to cheer her up as they approached the twenty-four-hour mark of her girlfriend's mysterious disappearance.

But the muffled singing coming from behind Chloe's twice-repaired bedroom door did not sound mopey at all.

" _I'm walkin' on sun-shine! Whoa-oh—_ " the sound of spitting, followed by running water _"—and don't it feel good!"_

Aubrey made two sharp raps on the wood and waited for Beca to open the door.

"Hey, Bree," the aerokinetic mutant greeted her while wiping a towel over her wet mouth. "What's up?"

Aubrey narrowed her eyes suspiciously; Beca was never this happy in the morning (late as it was). It could be another impostor—and if it were, Aubrey knew not to let her know she was onto them. "Just thought I'd bring you breakfast in bed," she said slowly. "You know, like I always do."

Beca raised her eyebrows in surprise before furrowing them in concern. "What's going on—are you having a stroke?"

Though reassured, Aubrey still rolled her eyes and shoved the tray onto Beca's chest. "I just thought of doing something nice, you know, with everything that happened yesterday."

"Oh. Right." Beca bit off half a strip of bacon. "Yeah… bummer."

Beca appreciated the gesture, especially coming from Aubrey, but she hadn't been expecting to interact with any of her friends so soon before decided on what, or how much, to tell them about Chloe's brief return. Chloe had allowed Beca to assure them of her safety but worried that revealing the purpose of her clandestine departure would insult Aubrey and Jesse—a worry at which Beca had rolled her eyes and brushed off.

Now, however, with the beautiful breakfast tray in her hands, she was feeling less inclined to be brutally forthcoming.

"You seem to be doing all right, though… getting your mind off of it," Aubrey observed, trying to sound encouraging and not accusatory.

"Oh… Well, yeah." Beca turned to place the tray on Chloe's bed so Aubrey couldn't see her face. "People, er, grieve in different ways, you know? I'm in the pretending-everything's-fine phase."

"Denial? Seems a bit late for that."

"Mind over matter always worked for me," shrugged Beca. She began digging into her breakfast and thought of a more proactive response. "So did you find anything? Any leads?"

Aubrey shook her head sadly. "I can't stop returning to that one idea though," she added.

"Hrm?"

"Meeting up with Luke and Stacie."

Beca swallowed. "How do you expect us to meet them, with the FBI now watching our every move?" she asked. "Coincidentally run into each other while recruiting another mutant?"

"That's impossible. There are no more mutants enrolling at Barden," Aubrey replied thoughtfully.

"I know. I was being sarcastic—"

"Cynthia Rose!" Aubrey exclaimed, snapping her fingers triumphantly. "I'm sure she knows how to get in touch with them."

"What makes you think that?"

"She's working on the anti-mutant weapon. If I know Luke, he's keeping an eye on her; and if I know CR—"

"Then she already knows she's being watched," Beca finished, nodding slowly. "Okay, but how do we get in touch with CR without getting _her_ in trouble with the FBI? I'm pretty sure they're keeping an eye on _all_ of us now, too."

Aubrey bit her lip and hummed. "I have an idea… but," she glanced at her watch, "you should leave it to me. You have to meet your mother today, remember?"

"What?" Beca looked around wildly for her phone. "Is it Saturday already? Shit." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "She was supposed to meet Chloe for the first time today."

Aubrey grimaced sympathetically. "Are you going to tell her?"

"And have her freak out about my safety again?" snorted Beca. "No, thanks. I'll just tell her we had a fight or something."

"Technically, you _did_ have a fight with Chloe right before she got kidnapped." Ignoring Beca's glare, Aubrey added, "Speaking of, I wasn't able to catch Charlene's return last night, and I can't seem to find her around the mansion. Did you speak to her about Chloe?"

Beca nodded. "She thought she had something but it turned up empty. Maybe she followed the Professor to New York. Any news from him?"

A small scowl crossed Aubrey's face as she sat down beside Beca. "If there is, he sure didn't tell _me_. My guess is, he's focused on getting Jack and Gail out of prison. Meanwhile, campus is crawling with FBI and, with Charlene conveniently MIA, _I'm_ in charge of fielding calls from panicking parents."

Beca patted Aubrey on the shoulder and feigned a wistful sigh. "Remember when our biggest worry was staying out of each other's way? Back then, I didn't have an amazing girlfriend to worry about and you had fewer mutants to lord over... Good times."

"Yeah," chuckled Aubrey. Then, catching Beca off guard, she admitted, "God, I hated you back then."

"Seriously?"

"I think you're forgetting how much of a jerk you were."

Beca gaped at her. " _I_ was the jerk? You were the one looking down at us!"

"Setting an example for our kind was _not_ condescension," countered Aubrey. "You just saw what you wanted to see in Luke and me. But be honest, you knew we were doing the right thing, didn't you?"

Beca rolled her eyes and turned back to her breakfast, slightly pissed that she had been that transparent.

"I don't hate you _now_ ," Aubrey said half-apologetically.

"Thanks. I don't hate you now either." Beca smirked at her. "You're getting there though."

"Shut up."

They shared a lighthearted ribbing and exchanged weary, understanding looks.

Maybe Beca had a point about mind over matter, Aubrey pondered, as she left Chloe's room. They never seemed to catch a break lately—the MRA, Chloe's kidnapping, and Jack and Gail's arrest. Pausing for a moment to pretend that everything was fine felt like the healthy thing to do.

* * *

Beca didn't bother going downstairs to have more people treat her like a bereaved victim; after finishing her breakfast she returned to her room (fortunately free of Kimmy Jin) to get changed. Then out the window to fly over the heads of the media waiting outside Barden's gates. At the hospital, she spent as little time as possible at the visitor's reception before anyone keen on the news recognized her.

Knowing her mother's tardiness, Beca timed her arrival an extra five and a half minutes late, so that the nurse was just beginning to settle down on a table when Beca entered the cafeteria.

"I thought you were bringing Chloe along with you?" pouted Beca's mother. "I was excited to meet her. I even got her this gift. Check it out—" She pulled out an old photograph of her daughter dressed as Toto the dog, standing in the middle of their old kitchen with her arms crossed, angrily glaring at the person behind the camera. The photo was obviously taken before Beca had vandalized the set, resulting in the school having to delay the production.

"Give me that!" Beca swiped, but her mother was too quick even for her. "Ah, ah. This is for Chloe," she reiterated, tucking the photo back into her purse. "Now, tell me what you did wrong."

"Why does _everyone_ assume I'm always the one doing something wrong?"

"Because you make it so easy, love," smiled the nurse. "Also, Chloe texted me the other day."

"She—what? You guys text each other?" Beca narrowed her eyes before nervously asking, "What did she say?"

"That you were being too over-protective," her mother answered, folding her arms on top of the cafeteria table. "Which, knowing you, can come out as both sweet and condescending."

"I was not condescending! I made some really good arguments—"

"It's condescending when you don't trust her to know what's good for her," the older brunette cut in wisely. "From what you've told me, she's been through a lot. Isn't it about time she gets to decide her fate for herself?"

"It is! That's exactly why I told her she could—" Beca stopped herself from mixing two arguments and revealing last night's, when she actually _did_ give Chloe the respect she deserved by not to stopping her from leaving. "—that's why I said sorry."

Her mother frowned. "If you already apologized, why are you still fighting?"

They weren't, but Beca spewed out the first comeback she could think of. "Sometimes apologizing isn't enough, Mom. I mean, if Dad came back a couple of years ago, would an apology be enough to forgive him?"

"That's completely different! We were married, and we had you! He broke a _vow_ and gave up a lifelong responsibility—you only insulted your girlfriend out of love."

"Yes, exactly! Thank you for taking my side for once!"

Both brunettes paused for a second, each trying to recall the point they intended to make, since the conversation didn't seem to end the way either wanted it to end—with the smug satisfaction of being right.

"Wait, so… you're still not speaking to each other?" clarified the nurse. "Do you want me to give her a call—?"

"No!" Beca said hastily, causing her mother to raise an eyebrow in confusion. "Just let me handle it. I'm trying to be more open and less… closed? You know, all that stuff you told me to be."

Her mother still looked suspicious but she seemed to let it slide with a shrug. "Okay. Now, tell me about school and this whole mutant act thing. I haven't had much time to catch the news—"

Beca's nostrils were suddenly filled with the overpowering scent of Bengay, and her other senses signaled an elderly woman approaching their table with a determination that didn't match her belabored steps.

"Why, Mrs. Mitchell, is that you?" the old woman said with a wrinkled smile. Her hair was graying but her eyebrows remained a dark, jet black, and though she walked slowly she did so with the gait of someone who once stood proud and poised.

"Mrs. Hess, how lovely to see you here!" Beca's mother greeted, rising up to shake the woman's hand. From her still seated position, Beca gave her mother a look that reminded her where they were. "I mean, not at the hospital, of course! It's just lovely to see you in general."

"Yes, you see, my granddaughter is in labor and—oh, is this _little Rebeca_?" The woman shuffled to the side of the table to smile down at Beca, who responded with a tight-lipped smile and an awkward wave. "I haven't seen you since you were this small," she said, lifting her palm about a foot above the height of the table. She always said that, even though Beca was certain had met each other many times since then.

"That could have been yesterday, Mrs. Hess!"

Mrs. Hess chuckled heartily—and slowly—for a good five seconds, giving Beca plenty of time to scowl. "Really? From my own mother?"

"Now, has that husband of yours still not come home?" Mrs. Hess asked as she lowered herself down to the chair with assistance. "You know, I still remember the last day I saw him…"

Beca resisted rolling her eyes and mouthed, "Can I go?" to her mother. Mrs. Hess was a kind old lady but she always told the same story over and over again, and it took ages for her to finish—

"… It was at the supermarket, the one beside the parlor not the one near the greengrocer's," she clarified firmly, not noticing her audience conversing with their glares. "He was at the payphone and I was in line at the cashier…"

"Is that so?"

"Yes, and I was calling him to get his attention—Mr. Mitchell!" the old lady dramatized. "Oh, Mr. Mitchell! Then I remembered he has a PhD so I tried calling him Dr. Mitchell next."

Beca took a deep, calming breath.

"He took no notice of me. You know, he looked real shifty that day. I'd wager that was the day he skedaddled."

Beca's mother hummed and nodded in feigned interest.

"Can you imagine if I had spoken to him? If I had asked about you and your child he surely would have gone running home wracked with guilt!" Mrs. Hess declared confidently. "But of course, I was preoccupied with my own daughter then, you know her, the one from out of town…"

Beca slumped further down in her chair and silently groaned as the first story was interrupted by another, even more irrelevant, one.

* * *

The mansion was strangely quiet for a Saturday morning. Having only recently moved in, Benji wondered whether the students were naturally studious or if recent events had driven them to remain indoors. In either case, he was eager to spend an afternoon getting to know downtown Barden, if only to check whether it had a decent magic shop. He believed it was worth the risk of going outside.

"Emily?" Benji did a double take as he passed the dining hall and saw someone sitting at the empty table. "Did you just get up?"

Emily glanced at the grandfather clock at the end of the large room and back down at her bowl of cereal. "Yeah," she said sheepishly. "Couldn't sleep well last night."

Benji nodded and hesitated for a minute before stepping inside and gingerly sitting on the bench opposite her. "You don't have to worry," he said reassuringly. "The mansion will be much safer now that the FBI are taking over our security system. It will be much harder to sneak one of us out."

"Oh, I'm not worried about the kidnapping," said Emily, shaking her head. "Well, I _am_ worried for Chloe but that's not what kept me up." She laid down her spoon and looked at him seriously. In a conspiratorial whisper, she asked, "You _really_ don't remember what happened yesterday?"

Benji furrowed his brow thoughtfully. "You mean when we were watching the news? You seemed kind of freaked out about it."

"You don't remember sneaking off to the back of the library to eavesdrop on Beca and the others? And then a second later we were _starting all over again_?"

"Eaves—eavesdropping? Oh, boy, that really doesn't seem like me," Benji sputtered, feeling guilty for an act he didn't even remember committing. "Maybe it was a dream?"

Emily shook her head. "No, I'm pretty sure it was real." Then she lowered her voice. "Benji, do you think it's possible—I know this sounds absolutely insane but… wouldyou believe me if I said I _time-traveled_?"

Benji stared at her for so long that Emily found herself wondering if she had also learned to ability to freeze time until—

"That is amazing!" he exclaimed, his face brightening up in awe. "Mutant time-travel? That's beyond incredible! Imagine the scientific theories you can prove or disprove—"

"You _believe_ me?" Emily said in surprise. Being able to phase through objects was something she had no difficulty proving to others, but time traveling—if that was indeed what she did—was still something she had no clue about doing, much less proving, which was why she had relied on Benji to corroborate her discovery. "Just like that, even if you don't remember?"

"Well, if there's anyone who could defy the laws of physics it would be you," Benji said without restraint. Then he caught himself grinning at Emily in admiration and went back to stuttering. "I mean—well, everyone in Barden defies _some_ physical law but I meant, you know, the laws of—of time and s-space and—"

"Hmm, I don't really know the laws of space-time," Emily murmured thoughtfully, not at all bothered by Benji's awkwardness. "I really wish you remembered, so I could be sure what it was."

"Have you experienced anything like it before?"

Emily leaned on her elbows thoughtfully. "I think so… There have been times when people said or did things that didn't make sense. Or like they forgot they'd already said something. It happened with Beca once, during a training.

"Speaking of Beca," she turned to him, "if you believe me I guess I can get Beca and the others to believe me, too, and they can help me train it. I really want to understand what I can do…" She looked down at her hands and then back at Benji. "Can you help me talk to them? They kind of intimidate me and I don't want to get in their way or take too much of their time, especially after Chloe's disappearance."

"Of course I'll help. But they all left a couple hours ago," revealed Benji. "When the FBI's security guys came over this morning to install the new security system, I overheard Aubrey telling them to get lost 'cause nobody was going to authorize their entry. And when they asked where they were going, Beca said something about upper Mount Spud…?" He shrugged at the unusual name. "Is that like a hill or something they hang out on?"

Emily stifled a laugh behind her hand. "Oh, Benji, I forget you haven't been here very long. The thing is, Beca would never _properly_ answer a direct question from a person of authority. She responds sarcastically—that's, like, her number one character trait," she added with an air of admiration. "I'm pretty sure what she said was 'up your mom's butt.'"

"So _that's_ why they left with such sour faces."

The two shared a laugh at their fellow mutant's antics until they noticed someone hanging around the doorway.

"Good morning, Miss Charlene," Emily greeted politely. "Oh, gosh—are you okay?"

The woman before them looked severely unwell. Her gaunt face made her jaw and cheekbones protrude more prominently, and her skin looked as though it was stretched towards all the wrong places. Her normally dark and glossy hair was receding and graying at the temples, which was alarming for someone they believed to be in her mid thirties. And as opposed to her normal pantsuit she was wearing ill-fitting men's clothes.

"I'm fine, Emily," croaked Charlene, her voice coming out hoarse. "I just need to—"

"You don't _look_ fine! Maybe you should go to the hos—oh, the hospital!" Emily exclaimed distractedly. "That's probably where Beca went," she told Benji, turning her attention away from Charlene for a second. "She mentioned she was visiting her mother this weekend at the hospital downtown where she works. We could take you there, Miss—"

But when the two turned back to the dining hall's entrance, they saw that Charlene had already disappeared.

* * *

While Barden's kitchen pantry could never be fairly described as 'insufficient,' there were just some foods that Fat Amy couldn't find in there. And ever since Aubrey had ordered a complete overhaul of the menus and forced the resident cook to serve only _nutritious_ food, the Australian had had to frequently leave the institute to find the comfort food she craved—and she heard that the American South were experts at that.

" _Mm!_ Reunited, and it feels so _good_ ," she moaned in singsong as she couldn't resist sniffing the giant slab of country ham inside a brown paper bag she was carrying. "I can't wait to have you inside me—whoops!"

Fat Amy rustled some leaves steadying herself after nearly slipping into a deep trough, which the forest's lush undergrowth prevented her from seeing sooner.

Fewer and fewer news reporters had been camping outside the main gates of the institute, but ever since the FBI's 'raid' Fat Amy had the foresight to take the route through the forest just to be safe. She didn't need the aggravation of the global news media recognizing her and tracing her origins to the other side of the world.

"Phew! I thought I lost you," she cooed lovingly to the ham. She stopped walking and lifted the bag to eye-level, checking if she had accidentally ripped the paper, when out of the corner of her eye she noticed someone approaching from the mansion's side of the forest.

The man—

 _No, it's a woman._

—was unrec—

 _Wait, no. It_ is _a man!_

—was unrecognizable to Fat Amy, with his wide forehead and thin, long—or was it short?—brown hair. Closer scrutiny revealed to Amy that the loose arms sleeves of the man's tweed jacket were filling out before her very eyes, as did the waistband of his pants. As he drunkenly stumbled his way through the fallen twigs and leaves, clutching his face with his hand, Fat Amy's instincts kicked in.

"Shape-shifter," she whispered.

Without a moment's hesitation, she ducked behind the nearest tree trunk, which was fortunately wide enough to cover her girth. Fortunately the man's pained groans drowned out the sound of her shuffling about, and Fat Amy was able to perfectly time his approach. She swung her heavy arm out just as he crossed her hiding place and knocked him to the ground.

With her precious ham tucked safely under one arm and the intruder fastened over her shoulder with the other, Fat Amy trudged back to the mansion.

* * *

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on my way," Justin said into his phone. "Just hailing a cab… What do you mean _walk_ there? I'm not walking all the way to Brooklyn!"

A yellow cab pulled up to the side of the road a few feet ahead of Justin. He hung up the phone and muttered, "Finally!" But when he climbed onto the backseat he was surprised to see a familiar face reflected in the rearview mirror.

"Brooklyn Botanic Garden?" Cynthia Rose asked with a steely glare. "That _is_ where you are going, right?"

"How did you—?"

"It's my job to know."

"I don't understand," said Justin, frowning as Cynthia Rose merged them back into traffic. "Yesterday you told me to go home. Now you're following me?"

"I'm only following you because I knew you wouldn't listen," she scolded. "Look, I know who you're working with. I thought it was weird that you were snooping around the basement for evidence, but then I found out that AMG is sitting on top of a former federal defense building that probably kept some of its old trash down there. And you know _how_ I found that out?" She locked eyes with him through the mirror. "The General Services Administration."

"I'm not working with the government, I _swear_ —!"

"I know you're not," Cynthia Rose interjected. "You're working with someone whom I know first-hand hacked into a government computer looking for records kept by the GSA. You're working with the unregistered mutants who used to be at Barden."

"So my suspicions were right," muttered Justin. "Tommy _is_ working with unregistered mutants."

"I assume Tommy is the hacker you're on your way to meet."

"Yeah…" Justin looked out the window and took notice of their route. "Wait, you're actually taking me to him?"

"I need to send a message to two of the mutants he's with."

"A message?" Justin repeated curiously.

"The distinction between registered and unregistered mutants is fading in the eyes of the public," Cynthia Rose said ominously, and Justin wondered whether she had always talked like that or if recent events had given her a gloomy disposition. "It should only be appropriate that we start removing that distinction among ourselves."

* * *

" _Pretty flowers. Soon you shall bury the earth._ "

"What was that?" Tommy turned away from the mesmerizing cherry blossoms against the backdrop of a cloudless blue sky to stare at the unusual woman beside him. "Seriously, speak _louder_. I swear you just said—Dude, what the hell! I said come _alone_!"

Justin came walking up the stone-paved path and through a floral archway wearing a sheepish expression. A woman Tommy didn't recognize followed behind him, eyeing Lilly carefully. "Are you the teleporter?" she asked her, after Justin made the introductions.

Instead of replying in the affirmative, the Asian mutant demonstrated her ability by creating two portals, one right beneath her feet and another behind Cynthia Rose's, so that she fell through the earth and popped back up behind the unexpected visitor.

Cynthia Rose gave her an impressed nod. "And you work with Luke and Stacie?"

Lilly bowed her head.

"Okay, this is what's going to happen," Cynthia Rose began authoritatively. "Justin and Tommy, ditch your plan. It's reckless and dangerous—and not to mention stupid. Even with a teleporter, there's a chance you can get caught—or worse, killed. There is nothing in those documents worth risking your lives for this late in the game."

"But—!"

"And Lilly, you're going to take these two back to wherever you guys are hiding and you're going to keep them there," Cynthia Rose said firmly. "They're already _way_ too involved for civilians and I'm not sure I can keep an eye on them much longer.

"Finally, I want you to give Luke and Stacie this message: tell them _to meet at the alpha_ _in exactly one hour._ Only Stacie will know what that means."

* * *

At the unregistered mutants' hideout, the team struggled to decipher the message.

"Meet _at the_ alpha?" Luke repeated with a frown. "Are you sure she didn't say meet the _team_ alpha?"

"No, she gave us a time so it makes sense that 'the alpha' is a place…" Stacie muttered thoughtfully.

"It's definitely code for something then. After all, you guys _were_ Team Alpha," said Alice. "But it can't be Barden, that place must be crawling with feds by now. You'd be captured in seconds."

Bumper rubbed his chin. "Alpha is letter 'A'… Atlanta?"

"Good job, that narrows it down to a whole city," Alice commended sarcastically.

" _She said only Stacie will know what it means,_ " whispered Lilly. Unlike Tommy, after months of being cooped up under the same roofs with Lilly, most of the unregistered mutants had already learned to read her lips. And the hisses she made by saying 'Stacie' made it quite clear what she said.

They all turned to the brunette, who frowned even deeper in thought. "Six PM… at the alpha… a time and a place," she muttered. "How would _only_ I know…?"

"Tick tock, legs," warned Tommy. Beside him stood Justin, still soaking in his surroundings, not quite believing that he was in a warehouse where unregistered mutants were hiding from the law. "Thanks to your gal pal, every second you waste is another second the FBI could be using to read through those documents—!"

Stacie shushed him and kept pacing. If _only she_ knew what it meant, then it had to be referencing something that only she and Cynthia Rose both knew, most likely from their time as AMG agents, before they had officially enrolled at Barden.

"Hang on…" She looked directly at Luke, the image of him sitting the backseat of his red convertible flooding her mind's eye. "Alpha _is_ a time and a place."

* * *

"Are you _absolutely_ certain that this was the man you saw?"

"The _woman_ we saw was Miss Charlene—"

"She was wearing these exact same clothes, though. And she looked very sick."

When she noticed her captive coming to, Fat Amy stopped interrogating the two witnesses and rounded on the shape-shifter. "Well, if it isn't Victor Victoria," she said, folding her arms threateningly. "You're finally awake."

"Need to… find Beca," the man said groggily.

"Aha!" Fat Amy perked up. "So _Beca_ was your next target, huh? Lucky she was out today. What do you have against her and Chloe?"

"Not… I'm not the kidnapper," the man said more firmly. He tried to move his arms and found that they were bound against his body by a curtain.

After bumping into Benji and Emily inside the mansion, Fat Amy had asked for their help in bringing the captured intruder to the library, where she knew they would have privacy given that no one went within ten feet of it on a weekend. The rising midday sun shone hotly through the window that was robbed of its curtain, hitting the bound captive directly in the face like a spotlight.

"I need to talk to Beca first," the shape-shifter insisted. "I'll explain everything to you three _later_."

Fat Amy shook her head. "No way, José. We're not letting you anywhere _near_ Beca."

Emily nodded fervently, her loyalty to her idol roaring in her chest. She overcame her apprehension toward the creepy shape-shifter and felt empowered, doing something to protect Beca from this creepy man-slash-woman.

The shape-shifter sighed exasperatedly. "There's no need to be suspicious—It's me, _Charlene_."

Fat Amy looked unconvinced. "I think you mean _Charles._ Look in the mirror. In case you've forgotten, you're a bloke."

"I am well aware," he replied dryly. "But I can prove I am her. Would an intruder know your names? Amy, Emily, Benji—"

"Ha! It's actually _Fat_ Amy."

"You were known as Patricia back in Tasmania, where you were a famous supermodel. When you got tired of the lifestyle, you faked your death, used your powers to change your appearance, and came here under the alias 'Amy.'"

Fat Amy narrowed her eyes. Benji and Emily glanced between her and the shape-shifter claiming to be Charlene, trying to hide their surprise over the former's secret. They had always assumed, because of her love of food, that Fat Amy was naturally plump and that her enlarging powers were a thematic coincidence. Now they were curious about what she looked like without the intentional alteration.

"Fine. Even if you _are_ Charlene, that only makes things worse for you," Fat Amy pointed out. "You've been lying to everyone all this time about not being a mutant, and on top of that, you kidnapped Chloe!"

"How many times do I have to tell you? I did _not_ kidnap Chloe!" growled Charlene. "Powers can overlap or manifest in similar ways—or did your trainers fail to teach you that as well?"

"Beca has never failed at anything!" Emily protested on instinct. "She's a _great_ trainer!"

The mention of Beca brought Charlene's attention back to the matter at hand. His focus had been on coming clean about his powers before getting blamed for Chloe's kidnapping—which, due to getting caught and being brought back to the mansion, was ironically what was happening now. He briefly considered coming clean to the three, but couldn't see them believing the outrageous truth without Beca to verify. "Please, just let me go. It is crucial that I talk to Beca _first_ —"

"Why?" Benji asked curiously. "Is she in danger?"

"Well, no—"

"Is anyone in danger?"

"No, but—"

"Then what's the hurry?" challenged Fat Amy. "We don't mind waiting all day for her to return and hearing you explain your body-swapping ways to _all_ of us."

"Um, actually, I had plans…" Benji piped up, only to be ignored.

After losing a silent battle of wills against Fat Amy, Charlene turned to his best hope, Emily. "You said that Beca went to the hospital, right? To meet her mother?"

Emily nodded reluctantly, careful not to give away information that could harm Beca.

"Then this is my only chance. I need to speak to _both_ of them."

"You're not understanding the situation here," said Fat Amy, before Emily could ask why. "We're not keeping you here because we get our kicks tying people to chairs; we're keeping you here because you're a sneaking, lying shape-shifter."

But Charlene continued to keep his eyes on Emily, who, as he anticipated, was growing more curious about the woman's—or man's—connection to Beca and her mother.

"Are you… close with Beca's mom?" Emily asked slowly.

Knowing the young girl's admiration for Beca, Charlene hoped that Emily's curiosity was enough to make a compromise. Fat Amy was only perceptive when she wanted to be, and Benji was new so, out of the three, Charlene suspected that Emily knew (and cared) the most about Beca's history, yet it still wasn't enough.

Jesse, and perhaps even Aubrey, however, would have made a swift conclusion as to the identity of the man sitting in front of them.

* * *

"Sorry about that," Beca's mother apologized, her eyes trained on the back of the retreating Mrs. Hess.

"You should be," chastised her daughter. "You made me listen to that boring-ass story for the millionth time!"

"You shouldn't be rude to the elderly, Beca," lectured the nurse. "You're supposed to bottle all that irritation up so you can cash in on the huge relief when they finally die."

Beca softened at her mother's humor. "Still, she took up your whole lunch hour talking about her gross foot problem."

The older brunette glanced at her watch in surprise and shook her head. "You're right, honey. I should have cut her off. I'm sorry."

Beca waved it off. "Nah, it's all right. It's my fault, too, for not visiting more often. Things are stressful at the Institute but it's nothing we can't handle," she said evasively. "Anyway, you said you had something important to tell me? Or was that the Chloe thing?"

"Oh, right." Beca's mother looked down at her fingers, looking uncharacteristically nervous. "It's just, um," she cleared her throat, "remember when I said I wanted to drop the 'Mitchell'?"

Beca didn't answer right away. Judging by its opening line, she had an inkling where the conversation might be going, and she mentally prepared herself for it. "Yeah… And how's that been going for you?"

Her mother bit her bottom lip. "Pretty well, actually… I think I _may_ have gotten myself a date."

Beca bobbed her head impressively. "So, you don't have time to watch the news, clean your apartment, _or_ meet your daughter more than once or twice a month, but somehow you find the time to play tonsil tennis—?"

"We haven't even gone _on_ the date yet!"

"Seriously, you're the busiest person I know! How did _you_ find time to meet someone outside of work?"

"I didn't," the nurse confessed. "He works here at the hospital. He's a new resident in the pediatric wing who has asked the other nurses about me more than once and… I don't know… I guess he is kind of nice-looking."

"Whoo," Beca fanned herself sarcastically, "please, Mother, spare my innocent soul the steamy details."

"Obviously I shouldn't have worried about your reaction," the older woman said with an annoyed huff. "Apparently, you'd prefer I go on a string of one-night stands."

"Hey, whatever makes you happy, Mom," smirked Beca. "But honestly, do whatever you want. Live your life! You don't have to worry about me, I'm a big girl now."

The woman nodded slowly. "I suppose it is time to loosen up a bit."

After her mother was paged and they said their goodbyes, Beca continued to sit quietly at the cafeteria table, sipping at her iced coffee while deep in thought.

She had always known that when her mother eventually decided to move on, she would have to open herself to the possibility of having someone new in her life. But that was before Beca had entered Barden, before she and her mother stopped living together and spending every day with each other. Living semi-independently at the institute brought a distance between mother and daughter that Beca hadn't anticipated, and now she couldn't fathom why dealing with her mother's new relationships, something that used to give her bouts of anxiety, barely made a dent in the troubles she was already facing.

As though the universe thought she needed reminding of these troubles, Beca glanced at the television mounted against the cafeteria wall and blinked in surprise. A news reporter was interviewing Aubrey right outside the gates of Barden.

" _The FBI barging in to demand the whereabouts of unregistered mutants was a complete invasion of our privacy and a violation of our constitutional right,_ " Aubrey was saying into the microphone, above a news banner reading 'Breaking News.'

Beca had heard Aubrey argue for mutant rights plenty enough times to recognize that, on this particular occasion, she was merely putting on an act. Her tone was less forceful and more indignant, as though she were trying to gain sympathy from the viewer instead of speaking to them on an intellectual level.

Before she could ponder the reason for the blonde's unprecedented move to go on record despite their long-standing orders to keep a low profile, Beca noticed something odd in Aubrey's posture. The ever-confident and poised woman had her arms wrapped around her protectively, with one arm coming up to rest by her collarbone.

Then Beca's eyes zeroed in on the strange piece of jewelry resting on Aubrey's finger: a silver ring with an emblem of an eagle. Beca vaguely recognized the band as something that Gail had given Stacie before the big Heartless fight in Florida, but she had no clue how Aubrey got it.

" _Mutants have lived at Barden in peace for over a decade, causing no harm to anyone, even with our identities private. I just wish things could go back to the way_ _they were a year ago._ "

Beca had half-risen from her plastic seat by the time the reporter wrapped up the story of how the FBI had raided the Barden Institute the day before. She drew her phone from her back pocket and started calling Aubrey when she accidentally collided with a woman carrying a tray of pastries.

"Oh—sorry!" she apologized quickly, before recognition kicked in. "Charlene?"

"Pardon?"

Beca realized her mistake when the woman turned to fully face her; she looked about ten years older than the Professor's assistant and had noticeably shorter hair. "Oh… my bad. You look like someone I know."

"Hey, weren't you talking to my mother awhile ago?" the woman asked.

"Er, if your mother is Mrs. Hess, then yeah," Beca said distractedly. Aubrey had answered her call and she could hear a repeated and annoyed " _Hello?"_ coming from the speakers. "My mom and I used to live a couple houses down the street from her."

"Ah, I see. Sorry if she got a little chatty," the woman said. "Mother's been getting lonelier lately and asking my daughter and me to visit. It's quite inconvenient, really, and now my daughter's in labor. I've been wondering if I ought to move Mother to a home…"

"It's no problem at all," Beca said tightly, short of outright agreeing with the decision to move Mrs. Hess farther from her neighborhood.

After Beca made up an excuse to leave, she took one last glance behind her, making a mental note to ask Charlene if she had an older sister. She felt her phone vibrate once more with Aubrey's voice and placed it against her ear.

"Aubrey, what's going on? ... We're meeting _where_?"

* * *

"Pretty clever code name, CR. Alpha and omega—the beginning and the end."

Cynthia Rose looked up from where she was crouched down by the narrow iron gates. There was a small device hidden by the overgrown grass at the base of the wall that controlled the old abandoned mansion's perimeter security, which she had now disabled.

"I don't get why the code was necessary though," added Stacie, extending a hand to help her former colleague up.

"Just in case there was a rat in your group," shrugged Cynthia Rose. "I didn't fully trust that Tommy guy. Hackers are notoriously slippery."

Stacie smirked. "It takes one to know one."

"I hope you didn't tell anyone you're here?"

"We didn't," assured Luke. "I don't think anyone else knows that this where Aubrey and I first fought alongside Beca and Jesse. And, obviously, this was where we met Chloe."

Cynthia Rose and Stacie exchanged knowing looks. "If things had gone a little differently, this is where you would have met us for the first time as well," informed the latter.

"What?"

"Gail didn't tell you after our memories got fuzzed, but _we_ remembered that we were the ones chasing you after you had your first mission here," said Cynthia Rose. When Luke scrunched his face trying to remember, she pointed to the sky and added, "We were in the helicopter."

"Huh. So this place, the beginning of all our adventures together—is the alpha. That _is_ a clever code name."

"When are the others getting here?" asked Stacie, looking around the garden eagerly as they entered.

"We're already here."

Aubrey, Beca, and Jesse walked through the mansion's open doors one by one. Barely two full days had passed since the two groups last saw each other, but given the gravity of the complications that had arisen since, it was still a relief for all of them to be back together.

"Speaking of clever code names," grinned Cynthia Rose. "That was brilliant, Aubrey. Although," she frowned slightly, "I don't know how you got the ring."

Aubrey threw Stacie a quick look before admitting, "Stacie gave it to me… before she and Luke left."

"You mean Gail's ring?" Stacie said curiously. "You used it?"

"I didn't actually press the emblem. I wore it when I went on the news to talk about how the FBI raided Barden," explained Aubrey. "I hoped it would go somewhat viral enough in a short amount of time to reach you. I figured everyone would remember that Gail had given it to us in case of an emergency and I knew Cynthia Rose was keeping an eye on the news, but I wasn't sure if you guys were," she added to the unregistered two.

"We have been, but we were already told us to meet here through Lilly," said Luke. "So, you knew this place was the alpha?"

Aubrey shook her head in confusion. "The alpha?"

"The place where it all began. There place where we all came together for the first time…" Luke looked past her shoulder. "But where's Chloe?"

Aubrey and Jesse exchanged grim looks while Beca sank back into the shadows of the patio guiltily. "You wouldn't have heard because it wasn't on the news," began Aubrey, "but Chloe's been kidnapped."

" _What?!_ "

Beca chose to observe the commotion as Aubrey and Jesse explained to the other three what had happened in the twenty-four hours following their return from New York. She let it go on as she prepared herself for coming clean to Aubrey for lying to her face earlier that day.

"This is terrible! I am so sorry, Beca," said Luke. "We've never picked up on a shape-shifting mutant before, but we'll certainly help you track down whoever took Chloe. You can count on us."

"Um…"

For the second time that day, Aubrey took notice of Beca's odd behavior. She had brushed off Beca's lack of urgency at breakfast, but now it just seemed as though Beca didn't care anymore.

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Hang on a second…" She crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one hip. "Beca, you've been acting really weird since this morning."

"What do you expect, Bree? Her girlfriend is missing," Jesse said helpfully but the blonde shook her head.

"She's not acting like it!"

Before Jesse could return to her defense, Beca held up a hand. "Aubrey's right," she confessed. "I guess, by normal standards, I haven't been acting appropriately for someone whose girlfriend has just been kidnapped." She took a deep breath. "And that's because…"

"Chloe _hasn't_ been kidnapped," finished Cynthia Rose.

Beca looked at her in surprise. "You already knew—?"

"No, but you have the look of someone who tries to make it obvious that they have a bad hand to make others _think_ she has a good hand when, in fact, she has a shitty hand."

Beca scowled at the analogy but quickly moved on. "Right. Well, Chloe's fine. At least, she insists she will be."

"What the hell, Beca? Couldn't you have told us that _sooner_?" cried Jesse. "We were worried about Chloe, too!"

But Luke had other concerns on his mind. After quickly filtering the information in his mind, he asked, "But what about the surveillance video? The shape-shifter? Did Chloe _stage_ her own kidnapping?"

"No," Beca quickly insisted, "the kidnap was real. There's this pair of unregistered mutants who heard about Chloe from the news, and when they found out she couldn't use her powers, they offered to help. Chloe said the kidnap was just to get her away from Barden without any of us knowing—since, like I said, they were unregistered.

"But they let her come back to say good-bye and that's how she was able to visit me last night and tell me that they were going to help her learn her powers the proper way. The other mutant is telekinetic, too, and apparently there's a different way to use those kinds of powers." She turned to Aubrey and Jesse and added, "Which makes sense, right? That explains why she wasn't getting anywhere with her training at Barden."

Aubrey's frown hadn't eased throughout Beca's explanation—if anything, it grew deeper. "Why are they doing this for her? What's in it for them?"

Beca drew another breath. "They want her telepathy. They'll teach her how to control minds, and as soon as she does, they're gonna make her go after whoever's in charge of all the bullshit. That's how they plan to put an end to the MRA once and for all… And we'll all live happily ever after, I guess."

Beca ended the revelation with a shrug, which was followed by a low whistle from Stacie. "That's one way to get things done," she commented heavily. "A _really_ _easy_ and _really_ _painless_ way."

"Yeah, but the thing is, Chloe doesn't plan on doing it," Beca said plainly, and she amused herself with watching her friends' split reactions.

"Why not?" was the sentiment coming from Stacie and Jesse, while "Of course not" came from Luke and Aubrey. Beca exchanged looks with Cynthia Rose and said, "Funny enough, that's pretty representative of Chloe's and my own reactions to the plan."

"Of course Chloe would be against it," Aubrey said at once, without having to ask. "You would, too, if you and Jesse bothered to help me workshop that Mutant Ethics class I planned over the summer, like _she_ did."

"It doesn't matter anyway," Beca said, quickly diverting Aubrey's attention away from a lecture. "I told her it was her decision, and you guys should agree. I mean, people have been messing with her life so much that it's about time she takes things into her own hands, right?"

"And you trust these two mutants not to hurt her?" asked Cynthia Rose.

Beca gave a hesitant nod. "Chloe trusts them. And I trust her." She recalled her mother's words and affirmed her commitment out loud, "I trust her to know what's best for her."

Aubrey and Jesse glanced at each other, knowing how significant it was for Beca to admit that given her last major argument with Chloe.

"Well, as long as you're sure Chloe is safe, that's one less thing we have to worry about," said Aubrey. She moved to Beca's side and squinted down at her thoughtfully. "Now that I think about it, I should've already guessed she was okay when I heard you singing in her bedroom without a care in the world."

Jesse whipped his head around, his eyebrows perched high on his forehead. "You were _singing_?" he choked.

Beca shut him up with a covert look and brushed the topic away dismissively. "Let's focus on the bigger issue now, okay? What are we even here for?"

Both Aubrey and Cynthia Rose snapped back to attention, but the blonde was first to clear her throat. "It was actually Chloe's kidnapping that prompted me to get into contact with the rest of you. But however the motives of the kidnapper turned out to be, it's clear that Barden isn't the safe haven we thought it could be after the MRA was signed."

She turned to Luke and Stacie and informed them, "It wasn't on the news until about an hour ago when I put it there, but the FBI burst in on us yesterday, demanding that we help track you and your group down."

"Obviously we told them we wouldn't do it," said Jesse. "But the Professor suddenly came in and insisted that we cooperate!"

"Charlene said he was probably just saying that to get the FBI off our backs," added Beca, "but either way, there's _no_ chance we're gonna willingly put you behind bars."

Their unregistered friends gave them grateful smirks. "When we found out we were public enemy number one, I tried popping in on AMG, only to witness it being taken over as well," said Stacie, turning to Cynthia Rose. "What's going on?"

"Gail and Jack were arrested," Cynthia Rose answered grimly. "The charges are pretty serious, but Gail assured me that their lawyers will take care of it." She had a worried look in her eye that told them she wasn't all that confident. "I'm lucky to be walking free myself, but I'm pretty sure that means they took the fall for all the hacking I've been doing."

Jesse swallowed anxiously. "So… Aubrey's right then? Barden's not safe anymore, not without Gail and Jack watching over what Congress can do to us."

Cynthia Rose nodded. "With our only source of political leverage out of the way, there's nothing stopping whoever is _truly_ behind this from going after Barden. It'll be easy, since they've been doing whatever they can to make it seem like mutants— _all_ mutants—are too dangerous to be kept free."

Beca frowned. "What do you mean?"

"All those attacks on big cities were fabricated, Beca. I've been to Houston _and_ Chicago, and the stories there are all the same: the FBI claimed jurisdiction over the investigation before local police could determine the causes of the explosions. The media aren't helping our case, either. With information coming from only _one_ side of the issue, the message is distorted."

"Which is why I thought to go on the news myself," said Aubrey. "Jack and Gail told us to keep a low profile so it wouldn't look like we were being too defensive, but being public about the injustices _now_ might earn us some last-minute favor."

Luke shook his head. "I'm afraid it's too late, Bree. We've also been monitoring online sentiment towards mutants and it doesn't look good."

"More and more people are coming around to the idea that it's much safer for everyone if mutants are controlled, just like CR said," revealed Stacie. "And even if there are some who sympathize with our situation, they won't support us publicly if it means endangering everyone else's safety."

Cynthia Rose nodded. "They're right, Aubrey. It was a brilliant move to get my attention, but it won't do Barden any help at this point. They're still going to clamp down on the freedom the MRA allows the students at the school. If you ask me, they only need one more attack to push Congress over the edge."

"And we all know how little control we have over _those_ …" Jesse muttered sardonically.

Beca rubbed her temples in frustration. With each remark about the world outside Barden's gates, it was becoming harder and harder to picture a future that wasn't exactly what Chloe had challenged Beca to fight against that day they went out for ice cream.

"What are we going to do about it?" she asked. "What's our plan?"

They all turned to her with mixed expressions. As proud as they were of meeting successfully under the radar, each of them was still admittedly clueless about what to do. They were up against an abstract enemy—the notion that mutants ought to be feared and locked up—and the shadowy figures pushing that agenda. And without support from Gail, the Professor, Charlene, or Jack, they truly felt that they were up against the world, alone.

The weight of the entire mutantkind lay on their six shoulders and every decision they made from here on out _had_ to be the right one. They had hoped that being together would make the decision clearer.

Cynthia Rose came up with at least one directive. "Well, first things first: we _need_ to work together from now on. We've so far been doing our own thing to stop whatever we can stop—like Luke and Stacie trying to get the anti-mutant weapon project booted, or Beca trying to get taxpayers to see the MRA as a waste of money by buying all those expensive music equipment—"

" _That_ was why you did that?" Aubrey turned to the DJ, looking impressed at her slyness. "And here I thought you were just taking advantage."

"Well, I hope you learned your lesson about underestimating me," Beca replied smugly, though she avoided looking at the blonde and revealing her dishonesty; because she had, in fact, just been taking advantage.

"In any case, it's time we focused on a singular mission. And as for communicating with each other, it's not worth wasting our time trying to find ways to meet in shadow, especially with them closing in on Barden."

Luke and Stacie shifted uncomfortably. "Look, we agree that we have to work together. I mean, that's _why_ we're here," said Stacie. "But we can't register."

"We can't betray all of those that followed us," added Luke. "I suppose we can communicate through Lilly—"

"But as soon as they get suspicious of us being in contact with you guys, that'll be the end of _our_ freedom," Beca pointed out, "which is kind of the only thing we've got going for us now."

"Is there a way we can just make it _not_ illegal to be unregistered?" suggested Jesse. "Never mind. I just realized there wouldn't be a point to the MRA if that was the case. Forget what I said, it was stupid—"

"Actually, you might have something there, Jesse," interjected Cynthia Rose. She turned to Aubrey, their legal expert, and asked, "Can you think of any way to do that?"

Aubrey stared thoughtfully into space, working out the logic in her head, and gradually began to nod her head. "I may have something..."

"You won't have much time," warned Beca. "Like Cynthia Rose said, they only need one more city attack and we're all done for."

Luke cursed under his breath. "I should have done something sooner, made a statement denying that unregistered mutants were behind those attacks—anything to stop the discrediting of mutants."

"And _we_ should have been more vocal about how unfair you were being treated," said Beca. "Point is, we _all_ could have been doing something that would have made our lives easier today. What's important now is to figure out what to do next."

They all nodded in agreement. Then Beca turned to Cynthia Rose. "So do we have to worry about this weapon you've been working on…?"

"It's out of my hands now," the chemist answered, shaking her head in disdain. "I don't know how quickly they'll be able to make something out of the shitty research we left behind, but let's err on the side of caution and assume that's another thing winding the clock down." She turned to Luke and Stacie with a curious expression. "By the way, why is Tommy so intent on getting his hands on the documents Justin found under the basement?"

"Who? What documents?" Aubrey, Beca, and Jesse raised their eyebrows in unison.

"Tommy believes it holds the records of mutants from the SRA years ago," Stacie answered seriously.

Aubrey frowned. "But didn't those who registered then just go into hiding after it was taken down? What use would the records be other than to mark even _more_ mutants as unregistered? It's not that important, considering everything else."

"Tommy believes that they _didn't_ go into hiding," Luke said heavily. "He says they were killed."

The other four were surprised. "Killed _how_?" asked Beca.

"In some secret military operation similar to what Chloe was put through," answered Luke. "We told him to find proof, because if we have evidence that history is repeating itself, then that could be a legitimate basis for the MRA to be taken down as well."

Aubrey shook her head in disagreement. "We were both in D.C. when the whole thing was being argued about, remember? Similarities with its predecessor were _exactly_ what they tried to avoid when crafting the MRA. And all the records from Chloe's trial were destroyed so there aren't any _current_ cases we can show that parallel those in the SRA."

Stacie was quick to rebut, "Oh, really? So you haven't endangered an innocent mutant's life by involving him in a military operation lately?"

Aubrey crossed her arms and glared at Stacie for her sarcastic quip. But she was more upset that she hadn't noticed the parallel with Marcus Day sooner. She had relied entirely on the guarantee that what they had argued for in court would stick. "Fine. If it's so critical to taking down the MRA, let's get those documents. How do you suggest we do that?"

Stacie shrugged. "Don't ask me. The only conceivable way I see us fixing every fucked up thing is through Chloe's mind-control powers."

Luke and Aubrey both chastised her with a look before the Brit said, "There has to be something else we can do on the _legal_ battlefield to prevent them from going after Barden. You mentioned the Professor has been back from his tour. What's he up to?"

"I don't think we should rely on him anymore," Beca chimed in. "If they were able to get to Gail and Jack, the Professor and Charlene could just as easily be targeted. We really have to see this as _our_ fight. And it kind of is, since we're practically the only ones left at the mansion right now."

"Do the students have any protection if they do go after the school?" Cynthia Rose asked Luke and Aubrey.

"It's tricky. A lot of things become legally permitted when done in the name of national security," Aubrey replied sourly.

"The truth is, everything that is guaranteed in the MRA not only _doesn't apply_ to unregistered mutants, but it can also be easily overturned when the need arises," added Luke.

"But what's the worst they could do to us?" asked Jesse. "I mean, they can't… _hurt_ us or anything, can they? Or lock us up? Not without reason."

Cynthia Rose shook her head. "It's not just about safety, Jesse. They could tighten security and surveillance. If you think having to meet a parole officer is bothersome, imagine having him watch your every move, every hour of every day. Imagine having to quit school and never leaving your house because you've been labeled a danger to society. Whoever is orchestrating the attacks and pushing the public against us won't stop at simply _harassing_ us. They want us _gone_."

"Or worse, bowing to their wills," Stacie added grimly. "We've got to catch these people. Can _that_ be our priority instead?"

"I'm more concerned about what's going to happen to Barden," Aubrey contended. "If what CR says is true, we need to be prepared for it. But if they do plan another attack and use it as an excuse to clamp down on Barden, what do we do then?"

"Easy," scoffed Beca. "We get our asses out of there."

"Beca, we have over two dozen students to think about!"

"Leave 'em," the brunette replied simply. "If they can handle it, I mean. _We_ should definitely run," she pointed to herself, Aubrey, and Jesse, "but if the others don't want the hassle, then they won't get it."

"I get what Beca's saying," said Stacie, nodding her agreement. "If our plan is to stop the witch-hunt and get things back to the way they were, then you can't delay yourselves following the rules when it's already turned against you."

"And if we do our job well, it won't be for long," added Jesse, warming up to the idea. "It'll feel like abandoning them at first, but we can't _all_ go into hiding."

Aubrey looked at Luke, silently asking him what he would do in her situation. After all, he had already made a similar decision to do the risky thing for what he believed was the greater good. "It's not ideal," he said slowly, "but flexibility is your friend when things get tight. And take it from us, it's not easy keeping a large number of people together, hidden from society."

Before Aubrey could verbally make her decision, Cynthia Rose suddenly jerked her arm up and looked at her wristwatch, which began to emit a soft beeping noise. "Shit. There's an unmarked car pulling in at the end of the street. Aubrey, I think the FBI has already begun surveillance on the students—"

"We need to go," Stacie said urgently, pressing down on a similar device on her wrist and scanning the area with the tiny camera attached to it.

"But we haven't decided on anything yet!" Aubrey said in a panicked tone.

"We can prioritize Barden for now," Cynthia Rose said quickly. "We can't allow it to descend into the same conditions given to unregistered mutants. Soon enough, they'll be calling for _all_ mutants to be locked up."

Stacie was still rapidly muttering instructions into her wrist so Luke gave them a farewell nod. "We'll try to get the documents Tommy's after. Be safe," he added in warning.

"We should be saying that to you," said Aubrey, worriedly glancing toward the open gate at the end of the unkempt yard. "Maybe you shouldn't be so out in the open—"

"Yes, abandoned mansion at the end of a long street, cast-iron gate—" Stacie stopped mid-sentence as the familiar purple portal opened haphazardly in the corner of the gated lot. Lilly poked the upper half of her body out, spotted them, and created a new portal much closer to Stacie and Luke.

"This is goodbye for now," the brunette said briskly, giving them all a look. "CR, you coming?"

To their surprise, her fellow former AMG agent shook her head. "Go. I'll figure things out on this end and leave you to handle the documents."

With one last hurried goodbye, Luke and Stacie disappeared behind the portal, which closed just as a dark grey sedan pulled into the street outside the gates.

* * *

It wasn't long before Fat Amy had exhausted the food supply contained in the brown paper bag, so when she inevitably left for the kitchen, leaving Emily and Benji in charge, Charlene grabbed at the opportunity for a reasonable discourse.

"Come on, Benji. Emily? You _have_ to let me go—I know you don't think I'm the kidnapper. Otherwise, you would have already called the police!"

"Amy says the police aren't on our side right now," Emily answered pleasantly despite the grave implications of what she had just said. "We don't really want to give the FBI an excuse to come snooping around again."

"And Beca should be coming back soon," assured Benji. "It's been hours since she left for the hospital."

Emily's eyes widened. "Unless… she's out looking for Chloe! Maybe that's why they haven't been back yet."

"All the more reason you should let me _go_ ," argued Charlene. "I want to help them!"

Emily exchanged hesitant looks with Benji. "I don't know… I still think we should wait."

"Hold on—what's going on downstairs?" Charlene craned his neck to see beyond the window, to the grounds below, where a grey sedan was moving up the driveway, approaching a black SUV already parked in front of Barden's doors. "Who is it? Can you see?"

Benji moved to stand by the window and watched the front doors of the sedan open. Two men wearing the signature navy blue FBI jackets disembarked. One opened the passenger door and shepherded Beca, Jesse, Aubrey out. To his relief, they didn't seem to be in trouble, but the looks on their faces didn't spell good news.

* * *

Kommissar stepped through the end of the Corridor and felt her feet touch down on hard ground. Pieter dutifully followed behind her and gazed up at the flickering light of the solitary lamppost along the extremely narrow dirt road the Corridor opened upon. They could barely move three paces in any direction on account of the area being surrounded by tall trees and overgrown shrubbery.

" _Why does the trace always lead to places like this?_ " Pieter asked in disdain.

They continued up the path that slowly curved around a large hill and ascended. After passing only two more streetlights, they finally reached the part of the desolate hill that rose above the trees below. The full moon silhouetted the distant mountain range encircling the hill they were climbing, and just beyond the tops of the ridges they could make out the deep blue water.

Kommissar and Pieter were at the very center of an island crater in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

" _This is the final stop,_ " Kommissar said confidently, looking up to the very top of the hill, where a dirty white building with a domed roof and tiny windows sat.

As the two approached the structure and observed its state, they noted how undisturbed and quiet it felt on the outside, though their heightened senses detected something extremely dark within.

" _Come. We might be too late._ "Without warning, Kommissar kicked down the door and strode briskly into the facility.

The clean floors, bright fluorescent lights, and sterile smell were indicative of a scientific laboratory. The building itself was surprisingly small; they crossed only one or two rooms along the hallway before they reached a large, heavily secured door covered with a number of warnings.

Appropriately, underneath the bright red 'Danger' sign was a man in a lab coat slumped lifelessly against the wall; his eyes were open, staring ahead unseeingly, and his breathing was nonexistent. He was sitting on a smudged trail of blood that disappeared beneath the sealed door, and a bloody handprint on the locking mechanism showed that he had escaped the room just in time and tried to lock whatever had attacked him inside.

Kommissar dug her fingers into the gap between the doors and effortlessly pulled them apart. She and Pieter were greeted with the sight of three more scientists at the center of a large, circular, brightly-lit room. This time, they were witness to the source of these men's injuries.

The scientists were tearing at each other, clawing at any exposed skin they could get their nails on, or using any object within reach to inflict harm on their fellow man.

While this was happening, Kommissar only took notice of the dark energy that seemed to be flitting back and forth among the three bodies. It was a cyclical possession, never staying in one host for too long before flying to the next, and thus sustaining the spread the darkness in all of their hearts.

Unconcerned with saving these men's lives, Kommissar simply walked past them and looked around the room for the culprit of their strange affliction. Then, Pieter, already halfway through his transformation into a rock golem, grunted at her and pointed upwards to a hole the domed roof.

Kommissar leapt into his giant outstretched hand, which tossed her up through the hole, and landed on the roof gracefully. It was there where she spotted a man in the familiar yet rare process of turning into a Heartless.

The semi-human creature turned around to look at them with half-glaring, half-pleading, blood red eyes. Kommissar judged that he was more than halfway through his transformation and nodded at Pieter behind her to engage it in a fight to release his heart.

* * *

 **Response to Reviews:**

 **RJRMovieFan** (Jul. 12) - Thank you for the review! And there's a meaning behind this: if you noticed, I skipped the whole process of "Beca falling in love with Chloe" and just made it a de facto relationship (a writing sin but, honestly, so many other authors have done it so well — it would be embarrassing to try to compete) in favor of putting more dramatic focus on how they might _not_ be together. So the twist in Season 2 of thinking Chloe wasn't going to remember but it was actually Beca who didn't, and this one with Chloe's powers are some ways. Sorry there's not much of Chloe and her mother in this chapter. Their timeline spanned about 2 weeks, so they will probably return in the next chapter.

 **xcombixgirlx** (Jul. 13) - You have very keen intuition! Not to spoil anything but yes, exactly! It isn't in this chapter but Justin and Tommy will ask Lilly to help them get the documents back. With Luke and Stacie in agreement now, it just might work! Uh-oh. It looks like the warning came just a bit too late.

 **c8-17** (Jul. 14  & 16) - Ch.9 \- First of all, kudos on your marathon read-through! And you are absolutely right, Jack is based on Jack Donaghy precisely because he was married to Banks' character in 30 Rock haha. And _also_ because he was attractive when he was young (still is, imho). Thank you! I hope that means I was successful my endeavor to make it understandable for non-KH fans. :D

Ch.10 \- Thanks! It means a lot that you noticed the pairings. I am one of those who simply don't register Beca and Jesse as a pair if I could help it lol. I don't remember what chapter it was but probably it was after 10 when Chloe asks Jack about the "other doctor." Funny you called him Beca's father...

Ch. 13 \- As for the charges, I did a rewrite but only to change their duration and, I think, limit the amount available. The main concept stays the same though: the only way to get to the end of the Realm of Darkness is in one go. They don't _really_ know, but thanks to the drones AMG sent out ahead of time they sort of know where _not_ to go. They just assume the Dark Margin is at the "end."

 **To anyone interested: Read the reply below for an explanation on the Realm of Darkness and Beca's Corridors.**

 _Q: can they start from a different point? like one of the rips beca can close?_

A: Yes, since the rips are simply Corridors made by the Heartless. If you've seen _Stranger Things_ , imagine the Realm of Darkness like The Upside Down — it is parallel to the real world in terms of physical locations and distance. So during their mission to save Chloe, by opening the portal in the basement of the Barden Institute, it means they enter the Realm of Darkness at a specific point every time. (BTW, thanks for asking this! I never realized it wasn't obvious haha.)

Ch. 13 (con't) - Oh, no. Isla de San Juan was just there to allow the incident of the world finding out about mutants. It really could have been any city in the U.S. but I liked the idea of it being foreign, so it's clearer that the students' missions brought them somewhat around the world lol.

Ch. 14 \- Perhaps some of my answers as well... Haha.

Ch. 16 \- *reads first few sentences* *zips lips* As for the 30 Rock quote, you were more than a little right, you were spot on! I was on a total 30 Rock binge around the time I was writing this haha.

 **Psychic Guest** (Jul. 14) - Oh, how I've missed your predictions! I've been struggling to figure out Jessica and Ashley's powers to be honest! I'm hanging on to the "We've been here all this time!" line to introduce them, but I haven't decided at which moment, and in what manner, they were "there." Although Jessica was mention by name already. You know me, moral and ethical debates give me life lol. I feel like Justin and Tommy's dynamic plays out way better in my head than in my writing. I want to capture their nerdy, self-deprecating personalities! And, yeah, nobody cares about the older generations, which is sad, 'cause they'd have a lot to learn from them. But it was part of their plan anyway, so they wouldn't get hunted down and killed. Yes, Chloe's power _is_ very difficult to understand. Now we know why only geniuses like Charles Xavier and Jean Grey seem to be able to do it well lol. Thanks! I don't think I've given you enough material to make predictions from this chapter though.

 **Maggie** (Jul. 17) - Thank you! Speaking of the length, I've been thinking of doing a complete overhaul at the end of Season 3 to split some chapters — no changes in the plot of course. Any thoughts? I always worry that my chapters are too long. :/

* * *

 **A/N and some behind-the-scenes writing stuff:** Thank you so much for reading! I do appreciate the fact that I can share this story for people to enjoy. I am also really sorry for taking almost a year to update. And then to return with this chapter, which is a glorified recap with few critical plot points haha. And if you're thinking, "But wait! The Alpha team got together and started planning!" Well, they really didn't get much done did they? Other than to do what they had already been planning to do.

That was intentional, believe it or not. For some reason I had the expression "design by committee" in my head as I was writing and I knew that I wanted nothing concrete to be decided by the end of their meeting. It's supposed to reflect their flawed nature and to show that these really are 18 to 20-somethings trying to save an entire group of people from persecution by an invisible force. They _don't_ have it all under control. Not one bit.

As the title suggests, this chapter is meant to bring together all plot lines closer together before things _really_ start making sense. I hope you stick it out and not get disinterested. Not to blow my own horn but I am a bit proud of how I plan to end Season 3 haha. Cheers!


	27. Dwindling, In More Ways Than One

**Chapter Twenty-Seven: Dwindling, In More Ways Than One**

" _A Gallup poll released this morning revealed that ninety-two percent of Americans believe that the government ought to take drastic action against mutants, up_ _from seventy percent prior to the attack in New York."_

Despite its rather important subject, the television quietly spewing the news was largely ignored by everyone around it. The atmosphere in the room where the mutants were summoned was extremely tense. Ever since they had been "escorted" from the abandoned mansion, Aubrey, Beca, and Jesse kept their mouths firmly shut. They sensed that the FBI knew they had interrupted a secret meeting with unregistered mutants, and the eerily polite and unassuming way the agents had asked them to return to Barden only intensified their gut-wrenching apprehension that something bad was waiting for them there.

" _We turn to our political correspondent Taylor Warren on how the mutant issue has affected the upcoming presidential elections…_ "

And to their surprise, Cynthia Rose was not asked to join them. Only when the mansion disappeared from view had it dawned on them that it was a calculated move to cut the flow of information between the mutant groups. The three had been driven back to Barden and escorted through its doors, and already the students sensed that they had lost their home, their sanctuary.

" _The mutant issue has been the go-to debate topic during the last few months of this campaign, Will. The President a few days ago declared unregistered mutants fugitives, which gave him a slight boost in the polls, but the budgetary sinkhole that is the Barden Institute has shed doubts on the effectiveness of the MRA, which the President strongly supported."_

The three were brought to the rarely used living room at the very heart of the mansion (a fitting metaphor for the invasion of the Institute) to a man already waiting. His back was to them with his hands clasped behind his back while he admired the life-sized painting of horses galloping through a river. When they entered, he turned around, smiling.

" _Not to mention, the revelations surfacing from the McKadden hearings are damning, Will. People want their taxes to go into protecting citizens_ against _mutants—not allowing them to live like the one percent. The response has been so overwhelmingly clear across the country—as you said, ninety-two percent—that we've seen anti-mutant promises coming from_ both _sides of the aisle now just to hold on to their constituents' support. As a result, the President is struggling to continue running his re-election campaign on the basis of 'We have achieved great things under this administration' when no, sir, you have_ not _. You have in fact failed to protect us from mutants_ three _times—maybe more."_

The television was put on mute and FBI Special Agent Paul Paulson finally addressed the students standing in a row before him.

"The media can get a tad overdramatic, am I right?" he said with a smirk. "Fortunately, I won't have to be, because, unlike Ms. Warren, I do not have an audience eager to hear what I have to say."

No words were ever truer, as the trio of mutants continued to glare at him. Paulson turned to his silent associate and was handed a brown folder, which he opened and passed on to Beca. "Miss Mitchell, can you tell me what you see in these photos?"

Beca exchanged cautious looks with Aubrey and Jesse before flipping the stack of photos over. The first was a still of night-vision security camera footage, evidently placed somewhere in the middle of a forest. A variety of thin and thick trees stood scattered among dead leaves and twigs, on a downward sloping ground leading to a small creek just visible in the dark photograph.

At first Beca didn't know what she was supposed to be looking at, but an oddly bright shape in the corner of the photo made her look closer.

"Try the next one."

Beca's heart skipped when the shape came further into frame in the next photo, and she quickly rushed to the next one, and the next even though she knew she didn't need to.

Beca had instantly recognized whose arm it was as early as the second photo, but she went through them all anyway like a flipbook thriller. Her eyes darted to the timestamp and confirmed that they were taken minutes before her visit from Chloe, who must have used the now not-so-secret passage through the forest the night before.

"There are photos of her going in the other direction as well," said Paulson, monitoring Beca's reaction closely. Aubrey and Jesse finally looked over Beca's shoulders curiously. "So, Miss Mitchell, were you aware that Chloe Beale, whom you had reported missing approximately twenty-four hours ago, had been at the Barden Institute between midnight and three AM today?"

Beca wasn't listening; she was trying to see three steps ahead of whatever Paulson was planning. Either answer she gave would put someone, if not all of them, in trouble.

Fortunately, Aubrey came up with a question of her own to buy more time. "How did you get this?" she said sharply. "The FBI hasn't been allowed to set up security cameras yet—"

"These are not from the FBI, Miss Posen," interjected Paulson, "but from the NSA." Before Aubrey could open her mouth, he preempted her protest. "Which was the agreement made the moment the Barden Institute was established. You honestly didn't think the government was only allowed surveillance on Barden _after_ the MRA, did you?"

Aubrey pursed her lips angrily. Paulson was right and she was the idiot who forgot that she had even personally assisted Charlene with the backup hard drives containing all of the old footage.

"There is nothing illegal here, Miss Posen, other than what your friend has done—"

"What are you talking about?" Beca said quickly. "Chloe didn't do anything wrong."

"So you _were_ aware that Miss Beale was at Barden last night?" sneered Paulson. He gave Beca a few more seconds to come up with a reply before shrugging his shoulders. "Honestly, it doesn't matter whether she contacted you or not. She's in trouble either way. You see, we have verified that she was indeed kidnapped by an unregistered mutant; therefore, the moment she _left_ the grounds, she made herself a fugitive."

"What?!"

"If Miss Beale had simply returned to Barden, everything would be all well and good. We could have easily assumed that she was released by her captors after learning she couldn't use her powers," explained Paulson, clearly pleased with himself as he paced in front of the trio. "But by _leaving_ Barden after her clandestine visit, she effectively signaled her free will and intent to join the side of the unregistered mutants."

"That's total bullshit!" Beca cried angrily. "Chloe's _registered_! You're just looking for reasons to lock up another mutant!"

A wisp of a smile crept on Paulson's thin lips. "I wish you hadn't said that. It really dampens the effect of what I was going to do next, Miss Mitchell, which is to repeat my question, albeit a little differently this time." He stopped pacing right in front of Beca and stared her down. "Were you aware that Miss Beale had _willingly_ _left_ the Institute early this morning?"

Beca felt Aubrey stiffen beside her but she was confused why it mattered whether or not she knew—until her eyes looked past Paulson and at the two other agents standing poker-straight, blocking the exit to the hallway. Then the phrase "aiding and abetting a fugitive" kicked in.

It seemed she was facing the end of _her_ freedom sooner than they expected.

* * *

"How stupid do you think we _are_?" Alice glared at the two failed escapees plastered to the wall by Bumper's slime. Her pixie wings fluttered behind her angrily as she hovered a few feet above the ground to bear down at them.

"We didn't know how long Luke and Stacie would be gone, and we didn't think you'd notice _we_ were gone until an hour or two," Tommy admitted with a wince when Alice menacingly brought her face closer to his.

Unicycle guffawed from below where he was playing cards with Bumper and other unregistered mutants. "You and fatso barely got fifty yards before we caught you."

"There's no need for insults…" mumbled Justin, who squeaked when Alice rounded on him next.

"Why the hell would you even _try_ to run away?" she demanded suspiciously. "If you were going to turn us in—"

"We weren't, I swear!"

"We needed to get back to AMG," Tommy answered urgently, "but your friend told Lilly not to let us anywhere near there."

"So you decided to _walk_ to New York?" snorted Bumper.

"I would've figured out the logistics later," mumbled Tommy.

"Isn't AMG crawling with feds?" Uni said curiously. "That's an even worse place to break into now, even if Lilly could get you in."

"The key to taking down the MRA is in a box of documents Dumbo over here failed to bring back with him when he got fired," explained Tommy.

"Again, there's really no need for—"

"Wait, are you serious?" Bumper folded his cards on the table and looked up at them. "You've actually _found_ the proof you've been looking for all these months? The whole thing about torture and shit?"

Ever the rational scientist, Justin was quick to temper their expectations by thoughtlessly blurting out, "Well, there is a very high _probability_ —"

"I'm a hundred percent sure the proof in there," Tommy cut in firmly. "But if we can't get to it in time, whoever just took over AMG will have the only existing evidence that the MRA _isn't_ legally sound. From the looks of it, those guys ain't your regular feds, and who knows what they'll do with that information!"

"Tommy's right." Luke and Stacie emerged through one of Lilly's portals that suddenly materialized in the middle of the warehouse. "We have to get those documents as soon as possible."

"What did you guys talk about?" Alice asked at once. "What's the plan?"

"The enemies are closing in on Barden," informed Stacie. "Whoever is running this exaggerated smear campaign against mutants wants us all gone—registered _or_ unregistered."

"Aubrey will focus on keeping the students' rights secure, as she always does," assured Luke, although truthfully no one cared as much as he did. "But we need to move quickly. One more attack pinned on mutants and there probably won't even _be_ a difference between registered and unregistered."

"If that time comes, the others will be joining us on the run, and we'll fight this together," added Stacie.

The others raised their eyebrows both in apprehension of finally taking more aggressive action—something Luke had been adamant against from the beginning—and at the notion that their rule-following former classmates would be joining them.

"In the meantime, we'll take advantage of our own relative freedom to do all we can to help stop the issue from escalating," said Luke. "Firstly, by making sure our only hope for a nonviolent defense is in fairer hands."

He and Stacie turned to Justin and Tommy, their two civilian allies dripping ooze down their sneakers, as they still hung plastered on the wall.

"What are you waiting for then?" said Tommy. "Let us down so we can get cracking!"

* * *

"What's the matter, Miss Mitchell? Can't remember?"

At this point Beca already knew what lie she was supposed to give, but the mere thought of it already felt like betraying Chloe. Beca sensed Aubrey opening her mouth and preempted the blonde before she ended up implicating herself, resulting in both saying something that would absolve Beca of any crime while simultaneously canceling each other's attempts.

"I didn't know she was leaving," Beca lied, at the same time Aubrey stated loudly, "Beca pleads the fifth!"

It was difficult for all the mutants in the room to resist violently wiping off the smirk evident on Paulson's face. Because Beca had technically answered his question, he felt free to ignore Aubrey. "So Miss Beale came to visit, I presume you talked for a while, then you both went to bed," he enumerated, "and in the morning she was just… gone?"

Beca glared at him. "Yes."

The agent jutted his bottom lip out in mock sympathy. "Sad… Oh, well. That saves us one arrest. You can keep those," he added, pointing at the folder in Beca's hands while he reached for another one from his associate.

Beca clenched her fists angrily as she realized from his body language that Paulson never expected her to confess anything. She was protected from his interrogation by her Fifth Amendment rights but was too caught up trying to figure out his trap that she didn't notice it coming sooner. All she succeeded in doing was letting Paulson know that there was too much at stake for her to be arrested, which, if he were shrewd enough, would alert him of an impending resistance.

So the entire exchange was just a mind game for him to exert his power over the mutants, getting Beca to say something that was clearly not true.

"Now we can move on to the actual purpose of my visit," drawled Paulson. "I am here to inform you, on behalf of the U.S. government, to make yourselves available for a hearing in D.C. on Monday, regarding a new bill expect to repeal and replace the MRA—don't worry," he added, seeing their exchange of anxious looks. "They're just making a few changes to calm the public."

He handed them the new folder.

"Here is a summary of the changes. I'm sure you'd want to look over that with all your mutant friends," he said knowingly. "But do be careful not to miss the hearing. I encourage you to represent yourselves this time, instead of relying on your headmaster."

Aubrey kept the folder pressed tightly against her side, denying Paulson the satisfaction of watching them pore over its contents in dismay. Disappointed, the agent straightened his tie and bade them a dry farewell.

When the doors to the hallway opened, they were surprised to see Cynthia Rose waiting expectantly—with Fat Amy and Emily. They had clearly been barred from entering by the pair of agents guarding the door on the other side.

"Miss Adams," Paulson greeted her curtly. "My agents tell me you've been keeping away from the seedy corners of the World Wide Web. I'm glad you took my warning seriously."

"You might want to teach your face to lie as well as your mouth does," the hacker retorted calmly. "Or does your wife actually believe you're not impotent?"

Paulson's face soured. "Charming, as always."

When Paulson and his cronies were finally, and definitely, out of the premises, the two groups of mutants were eager to reveal their own piece of news.

"Listen—"

"Beca—"

"—the MRA is being changed—"

"—you have to come with us—"

"—Chloe is now a fugitive—!"

"—Charlene isn't who we think she is—!"

"What?"

" _What?_ "

Six pairs of eyes alternately exchanged astonished looks.

"What do you—wait, what was that about Charlene?" Aubrey said at once, deeming this the more important concern.

"She's a shape-shifter!" said Fat Amy. "I caught her sneaking out through the secret forest passageway—"

"By the way, _not_ a secret anymore," interjected Jesse.

"—while she was turning into a _man_!" Fat Amy cringed and recalled, "He looked utterly grotesque, skin and bones all out of shape. I suppose the transformation made him weak because I knocked him out easily enough and tied him up in the library."

"He's there with Benji right now," said Emily. "We questioned him about Chloe but he swears he isn't the kidnapper. And… he keeps asking for you, Beca."

Beca frowned. "Why me?"

"He wouldn't tell us. But he said it was urgent, especially when he found out you were meeting your mom at the hospital."

Curious and eager to make sense of what was happening, Beca briskly led the way to the library. On the way, Aubrey speed-read through the proposed changes to the MRA. "They're planning on splitting us up?" she exclaimed, half in surprise and half in disgust. "Registered mutants of Category Two and higher are to be relocated to Fort Benning—"

"A _military_ base?" frowned Cynthia Rose.

"—while the remainder will continue to stay at Barden. However, there will be further restrictions to the curriculum, eliminating all training exercises and focusing resources on teaching mutants to control and…" Her voice grew more incredulous every succeeding word, "… suppress their powers in order to return to _civilized_ society?!"

The end of her sentence coincided with Fat Amy bursting through the library doors. "Shit!"

"I know! This isn't good."

"No—it's Benji!"

The others squeezed themselves through the door to find Beca and the two blondes crouched beside Benji, who was regaining consciousness thanks to the many slaps to his face Fat Amy was giving.

"I-I'm awake, thanks, Amy…" Benji lifted himself up to a sitting position while continuing to self-heal his black eye. "How long was I out?"

"That's what we'd like to know," Aubrey said gravely, looking around the room. "Where'd the shape-shifter go?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry, Beca," apologized Benji. "He didn't seem like he wanted to hurt you, though. Or anyone for that matter."

Beca was deep in thought and worry. Having _another_ mysterious shape-shifter appear out of nowhere was not a good sign, and the fact that it was _Charlene_ of all people only made things more confusing.

Did Charlene know something about Chloe's kidnapper? Was that the lead she went off to chase after the incident? But if she knew Chloe was in no real danger, why was she so eager to meet with Beca? Had something bad happened with Chloe's training and she was trying to send Beca a message?

"We need another lockdown," said Aubrey, interrupting Beca's panicky thoughts. "The shape-shifter couldn't have had more than a few minutes' head start—he could still be close. Emily, Fat Amy—gather everyone in here, and don't let anyone leave."

Both girls nodded. Emily immediately sank into the carpet to alert as many students on the ground floor as she could, while Fat Amy thundered off in the direction of the resident halls.

"Did the shape-shifter give _any_ clues as to why he wanted Beca specifically?" Cynthia Rose asked Benji, who seemed startled by her presence.

"Um, no. He was just really persistent. I thought he'd be satisfied when we noticed you had returned, but the next thing I knew, he was a she and slipping through the curtain."

"If he wanted to speak to Beca so badly, why did he run when she finally got here?" asked Jesse. "Was he lying the whole time?"

Benji looked into the distance thoughtfully before replying, "The FBI. I don't think he expected you to return with the FBI."

Aubrey and Cynthia Rose exchanged looks. "He's an unregistered mutant, so it makes sense he'd want to run," the latter argued.

"But this person is still _Charlene_ , remember?" said Beca, rising from her crouching position. "Even if she was hiding her true identity, that doesn't erase everything that she was. Charlene knows we wouldn't turn her in—plus, she could have _easily_ disguised herself to hide from Paulson. There has to be some other reason she's avoiding getting caught… a reason more important than whatever he or she had to tell me."

The others nodded in agreement and began exchanging theories. Beca, meanwhile, quietly struggled to compartmentalize her thoughts. The "revised" MRA battled to retain its top position for her attention against this new mystery, the implications of which were only starting to unfold, revealing itself to be a piece of a bigger puzzle than Beca could have imagined.

Charlene was a mutant… a mutant with the exact same ability as that of Chloe's kidnapper… an ability that, as far as the Institute's history went, did not need training under the Professor's tutelage.

' _I think they're_ older _mutants… Not like how Luke and Aubrey are a bit older than us, but like… an older generation.'_

As confused mebwies came filing into the library, Beca quietly moved to the back to let Aubrey do her job and explain the situation. The voices softened the further she got from them, until she stopped at the southeastern corner of the building. She looked down at the grounds, almost half-expecting to see Charlene running away, back into the forest.

But Beca saw only her reflection in the glass and she imagined it morphing into an older version of herself. If Chloe was right about the kidnappers being from an older mutant generation, then Chloe's kidnapper done the opposite transformation, from older to younger, into a convincing copy of Beca.

Thanks to Fat Amy's timely discovery, they were certain that Charlene had been copying someone else's appearance, likely an older male… Was it possible that Charlene was actually the Professor's contemporary, posing as his younger assistant?

"But why bother hiding his identity at a school full of mutants?" Beca muttered to herself. Although Charlene's identity as an older, experienced mutant cleared up how the Institute had been able to properly teach younger mutants, it still wasn't clear why he wouldn't simply come out.

As Beca thought about how Charlene had helped develop the proper training methods at the school, her mind drifted to teaching shape-shifting. Being a trainer herself, she imagined it required a lot of concentration to mimic all the trivial details of a person's appearance in order to be convincing.

But transforming into someone like Charlene, Beca quickly realized, was not that difficult. The woman was rather plain: straight dark hair, average features, and skin free of any distinguishable marks. There were countless women who probably fit her height, weight, and overall description—which was probably why Beca mistook her for Mrs. Hess's daughter, another average-looking female.

The reminder of her day trip to the hospital brought to her already cluttered mind another strange thing about Charlene's mysterious revelation: the shape-shifter had been eager to meet her _mother_ as well. Or, at least, that's how Beca understood Emily's words.

Beca decided to confirm if she understood correctly, and turned around to begin walking back to the gathering of students; but in her mind it was already a fact, and her subconscious had already worked out the tangled mess of information in her head to form a hypothesis as to Charlene's true identity.

It was a theory so impossible that the very _conceptual_ possibility of it was staggering enough to freeze Beca in her steps.

* * *

On an island off the southern coast of Japan, a fierce battle continued onto its second hour. The domed white building that once stood atop the hill on the center of the crater now lay in ruins. The three creatures that caused the collateral damage had now abandoned the hill to fight in the sky.

Kommissar dodged the semi-Heartless' attack, allowing Pieter to intercept its course with his giant golem fist. The creature blocked the attack with crossed arms, and chunks of rock crumbled and fell to the ground upon impact. Pieter withdrew his nearly disintegrated arm and started to gradually regenerate the lost material.

From behind the semi-Heartless, Kommissar rushed and aimed a powerful kick, but her target had sensed her coming a split-second before it landed and grabbed onto her leg. Matching her superhuman strength, it countered with its own spinning kick to her head.

The fight had been going this way for an hour. For reasons that were beginning to dawn on the two, the man in the process of turning into a Heartless was able to simultaneously weaken their attacks and match their power with his own.

More concerning was the fact that, despite being halfway through his transformation when they first encountered him on the roof, the man had yet to complete his becoming a Heartless. It was as though the darkness growing within him was going someplace else.

" _He is the leak,"_ she called out to Pieter. " _It appears he can transfer dark energy at will._ "

Pieter flexed his newly reconstructed fist. " _As well as weaken and absorb our own. We must increase our effort. We cannot defeat it alone._ "

" _Summoning more Heartless will upset the balance on this island._ "

" _I was referring to the girl with the Keyblade._ "

Kommissar observed the semi-Heartless carefully. It seemed uncharacteristically self-aware of its own powers; choosing not to charge at them but to wait to counter their attacks and transfer energies. " _She cannot defeat the Heartless inside,_ " she concluded. " _For it will drain her powers easily. But,_ " she continued thoughtfully, " _six of them defeated Chlobear's Heartless. Perhaps, once more, their strength will be in their number."_

* * *

Back at the unregistered mutants' hideout, Tommy and Justin were preparing for the task of stealing the documents containing proof of the experiments done to mutant "volunteers" during the 80's.

"Right before the elevator closed, I remember seeing an agent taking the box and dumping it on a desk with all the other research documents," recalled Justin. "I doubt they could finish all of that in a day—if they even bothered reading them at all. They knew we were purposely delaying the project, so there's a chance they started from square one."

"So the box will most likely still be in the same room the blueprints for the weapon were?" clarified Stacie. "Because Lilly can only port to that particular room. I can't help with the other areas on that floor."

"It's as good a starting place as any," said Tommy. "Once we're in, all we have to do is locate the box, replace it with this decoy," he lifted a cardboard box filled with newspaper, "and get the hell out."

"What if there are guards?" asked Alice.

"That's the reason I am going instead of Stacie," answered Luke. "As long as we all stick together, there should be no problem getting out with Lilly. The worst that could happen to us is being accused of breaking and entering; they won't be able to tell we switched the documents in all the commotion."

Stacie folded her arms decisively. "All right, then. We'll be waiting for you. Good luck."

* * *

"Good afternoon, Mr. Smith, and thank you for agreeing to this deposition. I'm afraid the Attorney General could not meet your request for his presence today. But rest assured everything that is put on record today will reach his office."

John waved off the formal apology as he sat down on a sleek leather chair. "No worries. Perhaps I'll give him a call later today."

Across him and already seated were two hard-faced lawyers and a video camera. To their surprise, the mutant "expert" had come alone; though they knew he had chosen to represent the mutants himself during the MRA hearings, they expected him to come more prepared for a case concerning the Barden Institute itself.

"Before we begin, we would just like to clarify the scope of this deposition," began one of the lawyers. "Since you are intimately connected to the mutant issue, you must be aware of the multiple lawsuits raised against mutants, is that correct?"

John smoothened his tie. "Yes. I was told this particular one has to do with the McKaddens."

"Well, only insofar as their company, AMG, is involved in Barden's operations. You see, Mr. Smith, because of the unusual arrangements concerning the establishment of the Barden Institute, and the more recent partnership between AMG and your school, concerns about conflicts of interest have been raised."

"Is that so?" said John, folding his hands calmly on the glass table.

The lawyers shuffled their papers and began digging into their list of questions. "Mr. Smith, could you tell us about the underground facility located within the Barden campus?"

"It is exactly as it sounds—an underground level with rooms where my students undergo training in physical combat and power development."

"And this facility was built when?"

"Construction began on the fifth year; it finished around the sixth. Investment was quite slow until recently."

"Can you tell us what technologies were used to 'train' the students?"

"It's a simulation program… Don't ask me how it works. It's all technical mumbo-jumbo to me," chuckled John.

"Were you aware that a similar simulation program was being developed at AMG two years before you acquired yours?"

"I was just given the technology, I did not commission it—"

"Were you aware—?"

"No, I wasn't aware that time, but I obviously am now," John said irritably. "I presume AMG did not go public with that information."

Not bothering to confirm or deny his last comment, the lawyers pressed on. "Going back to the underground facility, is it true that there is a hangar used to house a private jet?"

"That is correct."

"Who paid for the jet?"

John blew a low whistle. "You guys don't beat around the bush, do you? It was co-financed by AMG. And before you ask, yes, the other financier was the U.S. government."

"Mr. Smith, is it necessary for the students to even _have_ access to a private plane?"

"That depends on what you mean by 'necessary.'" When the lawyers didn't bite, John said, "Anyone who has watched that infamous video can already guess that my students use their powers to aid in rescue operations and deal with Heartless attacks. Often, these attacks don't happen within walking distance of the campus, so in order to get there on time they need a fast vehicle."

"And that is how they were able to get to St. John's Island in the first place."

"Exactly."

One lawyer looked down at a piece of paper. "But the jet was purchased a month after that event."

John frowned for a second then snapped his fingers. "Ah, yes. Well, we took AMG's private jet before we got our own."

The lawyers exchanged looks. They took down some notes in the margins of their notebooks before turning to a different page.

"Forgive us for going off on a tangent, Mr. Smith, but our investigators have had difficulty in tracing the history of Barden. Hopefully you can enlighten us. Why did the _government_ get involved in setting up a school for training mutants in the first place? And why did they choose you to oversee it?"

"Why?" John looked into the distance thoughtfully. He cleaned the lenses on his glasses before answering, "There is a man—I don't know his name, only his face, as was the arrangement. He works for the federal government, likely an intelligence agency of some sort, given his expertise in confidential affairs. Only he can answer _why_."

"But Mr. Smith we are asking _you_."

"And I don't know the answer," John said simply. "I know the consequences of perjury—but I truly do not know ' _why'_ the government had me involved in the creation of the Barden Institute. That decision was above my security clearance."

For the first time since the deposition began, the lawyers looked annoyed, as though they weren't getting the information they wanted.

"Don't look so glum, chums," smiled John. "He's still out there, and he's probably still working for the agency that propped up the Institution. He visited me in my hotel room when I was in D.C. a few months ago for the MRA briefings." He held his hands out in offering. "Have your investigators do with that information as they will."

After taking down the details of his stay, the lawyers tapped their pens and scrutinized him, wondering how far John's helpfulness could stretch. They only needed one critical piece of information to build a solid case.

"One last question before we take a break, Mr. Smith."

"Go ahead."

"This man who works for the agency… do the McKaddens know him as well?"

John leaned back in his chair with a blank look on his face. "Yes."

* * *

"How was the deposition?"

"It was fairly straightforward," shrugged John. "They clearly wanted dirt on you but like your lawyers said, there's nothing solid in their accusations."

"And yet I'm still here," Jack said pointedly, gesturing around the prison visitors' center. "Separated from my wife, who is across town in another facility."

"What happened to the petition to put you under house arrest?"

"Bureaucratic delays," grumbled Jack. "That Paulson really wants to lay it in thick."

"I never did like him," John said bitterly.

Jack ran a hand through his thick dark hair and shook his head dismally. "What am I doing, complaining? At least I'm somewhat safe. How are things out there? How's the search for Chloe?"

"Fruitless. But now that it has been twenty-four hours, the students are getting the FBI involved. That might speed things up."

Jack shook his head. "If I were Paulson, I'd use this as an opportunity to further restrict mutants. Chloe is a Category Three, after all."

"Without her powers, that would be a hard sell."

"Since when have they had a problem selling the idea that mutants are out of control and dangerous?"

John gave a wry chuckle. "You have a point…"

Jack lowered his voice and leaned closer to John. "All of these events are being orchestrated by someone who is _very_ anti-mutant. Gail and I were beginning to find the trail before we got arrested. You need to get in touch with Cynthia Rose—and this young man we hired on the weapon team, his name is Justin. They hopefully picked up where we left off."

"But, Jack—"

"Look, I appreciate you staying in New York to help our case," Jack said sincerely. "Especially, you know, with our history. But right now there are more important things to do—finding Chloe, stopping the crackdown on mutants—and you're the only man I trust to help them."

John could only nod solemnly. "I'll do what I can."

"Thank you."

Jack held out his hand and John looked at it, surprised, before gripping it back.

* * *

"Beca? Are you okay?"

The soft and concerned tone of Emily's voice brought Beca's back to earth. Aubrey was still speaking to the students at the other end of the hall while Jesse observed from the side. Fat Amy was nodding her head, listening to Cynthia Rose explaining something Beca couldn't hear.

Beca's line of focus narrowed and she saw that Emily and Benji were standing before her strangely frozen stance. "Sorry… did you say something?"

"Uh… I—you see—"

Emily's nervous fidgeting made her nearly incomprehensible, and given that they had little time Benji decided to take over the explaining. "I know this isn't the best time, with Chloe missing and being declared a fugitive, and then the whole thing with Charlene—"

"No, please," Beca said quickly. She swallowed the sickening feeling that had been rising in her throat and pushed her theory out of mind. "I don't want to think about… the things we can't do anything about, you know? So, go ahead. I need the distraction."

"Oh, okay." Benji seemed uncomfortable with Beca choosing to put all her focus on this, but he wasn't going to turn away an open shot. "The thing is, we think Emily might have a new power."

Beca blinked. It was not earth-shattering news, which was a huge relief—a return to normalcy, in fact—given that her world was already in the process of being shattered by everything else that had been going on.

Nevertheless she felt that Emily ought to be given the best options before she accepted the task of training her. "Um, but you guys know that Aubrey and Jesse are way better trainers than I am, right?"

"This particular ability seemed more up your alley," said Benji, before Emily could rise to Beca's defense. "Aubrey is, well, otherwise occupied and I know Jesse is more comfortable with physical type of powers."

"And what's Emily's type?"

"Funny and little bit dorky."

The inappropriate timing and perfectly deadpan execution caused Emily's joke to sail over Beca's head. "What?" she frowned.

"T-time travel," a beet-red Emily blurted out quickly.

"Ohh, time tra— _time travel_?" Beca repeated incredulously. Aubrey and Jesse looked up curiously at her outburst before turning back to the students. "That's insane! And that's coming from someone who just found out that her girlfriend can possibly control minds—"

Two light brown eyes widened in excitement. " _Seriously?!_ "

"—but are you sure it was time travel?"

"Fairly sure," Emily nodded. She had prepared her explanation. "Yesterday, Benji and I were listening in on your meeting with the FBI—" Benji's eyes lowered guiltily "—when someone _grabbed_ my leg! I phased us both a floor down but I overshot, and when I went back upstairs Benji hadn't even moved from the couch! I remember Aubrey teaching us that our powers spike when we feel strong emotions, so it's possible that it got triggered by shock.

"And it's not just then—strange things have been happening lately that can be explained by time traveling. Do you remember our training the day Chloe was kidnapped?" she said. "The reason I started to leave early—or the reason _you_ ended the training early was because in _my_ time, we had already reached the end of the session! I went back in time _ten minutes_!"

Beca listened quietly and nodded slowly at the end. She had no reason not to believe Emily, but the girl was incorrect in thinking that this type of power was "up her alley." Despite taking honors Physics in her senior year, Beca had virtually no expertise in that level of science, not even enough to understand how it would be possible.

"I'm sorry, Emily, but that's way out of my league," she told the eager brunette. "Time travel is just too out of this world—"

As if on cue, a portal leading out of this very world suddenly materialized nearby. Beca sensed the entrance open behind the shelf separating them from the reading area and calmly turned around, whereas Emily stifled a scream and Benji choked back a yelp at the dark energy glowing behind the history books.

"We have found the source of the leak, tiny mouse," Kommissar announced, her voice muffled by the objects blocking her path. When she realized her position, she pushed a row of books to the floor and peered down at Beca. "In an island south of the country called Japan, we encountered a man in the process of transforming into a Heartless."

While Pieter showed Kommissar the way around the shelf without having to speak through it, Beca took a second to shift her focus from Emily's new ability to her secret mission. "Wait, if you found the leak, why are you still here?" she asked in confusion. "Weren't you able to get rid of it yet?"

"We could not. I believe this man to be of your kind," Kommissar explained, ignoring the other two mutants while Pieter eyed them with mischievous interest, "for he has the unique ability to transfer energy away from himself. That is why we could find merely traces of his dark scent across your world."

"But what's this got to do with me?" Beca asked, though she already suspected she knew the answer.

"The energies can transfer to himself as well," Kommissar said and gestured toward Pieter. He raised his fist and showed a discoloring around his knuckles, where the Heartless had touched it. "You temporarily lose your own abilities when he absorbs them. Even with our exceptional combined strength, we were unable to overpower him." Even in admitting defeat, Beca could detect hints of arrogance in her tone. "So we decided to retreat. Your experience with Chloe's Heartless suggests that the way to defeat him is to overwhelm him with numbers."

"So, you want our help…" Beca looked over at Aubrey, who had just finished dismissing the students and was on her way to them. Cynthia Rose, Fat Amy, and Jesse were approaching as well.

"What's going on?" asked Aubrey.

Kommissar looked at each of them, mentally counting. "I expected more than this."

"And who are these two?" Fat Amy scrutinized the tall strangers, taking in their accents, unusual garb, and dark eyes. "Last-placers in the Eurovision contest?"

"If that is a food eating competition in which you have won the grandest of prizes, then yes," Pieter replied testily. As if he felt his comeback needed further explaining, he added, "Because you are very large and presumably eat a lot."

"Ha, joke's on you 'cause Australia's not _in_ the Eurovision!"

Beca raised her eyebrows in amusement. It was nice to see Pieter's feathers ruffled for once, and Fat Amy seemed just the person to do it.

"Mutants have split up because of the MRA, didn't you know?" Aubrey said in response to Kommissar's remark.

"We don't concern ourselves with your world's events," she replied unemotionally. Then, with a patronizing flick of her wrist she commanded them to follow her. "Let us go."

"Where are we going?" said Jesse.

"Japan, I think," replied Beca. "There's a new Heartless. A major one."

"Someone has to stay behind and watch the students," he said, slipping into the firm and methodical tone he adopted when commanding missions. "I'll prepare the jet for takeoff. And we need to form a battle plan—what is this Heartless like?"

Before Beca could explain what she had learned from Kommissar and Pieter, the dark goddess interrupted. "There is no time to waste. We must leave at once." She opened a new Corridor and walked straight in without a look back.

Aubrey watched Kommissar's back disappear and took a split second to decide. "All right. Emily, Benji, and Amy, you three stay here—"

"Oh, no, blondie. I'm going," said Fat Amy, pushing past Aubrey on her way to follow Kommissar. "With everything that's happened today, it's clear to me that things are _way_ more interesting in your circle. I'm tired of sitting around and watching the news."

As she disappeared through the dark portal, Jesse turned to Benji with a hopeful expression. "Don't worry," said the healer. "Emily and I will stay here to keep an eye on the students."

"But you don't have any offensive abilities," Aubrey started to argue, but Jesse calmed her down. "They won't need any. We're not under attack," he assured. "Come on. The sooner we get rid of this Heartless, the sooner we can be back." With that, he took her hand and joined her through the Corridor, leaving Beca to bring up the rear.

"Emily, about that time travel thing," she said hurriedly, "in case we aren't back for a while, you could check out the 'book' we trainers use about power development. It's in the control room downstairs."

"Are you sure we're allowed to use it?"

"Yeah, yeah," Beca said carelessly. "Use my account to get into the system and just, you know, try not to change anything important."

"Roger that. Oh, and be careful!" added Emily.

"Don't worry. We've had plenty of tough fights before." Beca gave them a lazy salute before finally ducking into the Corridor.

* * *

When Beca had finally entered the Realm of Darkness, the others were gathered around a large rock formation awaiting her. The Realm was just as she remembered it, cold, dark, and grey, and already she felt less eager to fight another Heartless.

"We will need to travel quite some distance," said Kommissar. "Pieter will be your transport."

"I cannot lift something as large as _that_." Pieter nodded toward Fat Amy, who stuck her tongue out at him. Nevertheless, she, Aubrey, Jesse, and Cynthia Rose hopped onto his hand midway through his transformation into a sixteen-foot tall rock golem, while Beca and Kommissar took to the dark skies.

"Seriously, who are these people?" Fat Amy asked her fellow mutants. She looked over the edge of Pieter's palm, down at the famous Realm of Darkness she had been hearing about. Squinting, she saw Pieter's giant feet crushing hundreds of creatures and his torso cutting through clouds of flying Heartless as they traversed the Realm.

"It's a long story," said Jesse, shielding his eyes from the heavy wind. "Basically they're like the masters of the Heartless."

Meanwhile, Beca flew closer to Kommissar and asked, "I thought you traced the leak to Japan? Why are we here?"

"The Realm parallels your world, though far closer in distance, I believe."

"Really? So when we were going through the Realm to find Chloe…"

"You never would have reached her," Kommissar said bluntly. "I told you your mission was a failure. It was doomed from the start."

Beca pursed her lips. For someone asking for her help, Kommissar was not all that gracious. "Why didn't you just throw the Heartless here like what Jack did to Chloe's Heartless?"

"What that man did greatly upset the balance between the two worlds," Kommissar replied with a nasty grimace. "It is the reason more Heartless are able to enter yours in recent years. But as to this new enemy, we are not dealing with a full Heartless; the mutant is only halfway through his transformation. Wouldn't you agree, Keyblade wielder, that we have an obligation to save his heart?"

Beca nodded thoughtfully. After a few minutes of traveling, Kommissar opened another Corridor and the group reentered the human world at the top of a tall hill in the middle of the night.

Though they had already left the Realm of Darkness, Beca felt a suffocating amount of darkness, more unbearable even than the one within the Realm itself. She now understood what Kommissar had meant by the Heartless transferring energies; the darkness seemed to be _moving_ around. She turned to her friends and saw equally disturbed looks on their faces.

"Phwoar, something's crazy funky about this place," said Fat Amy. She squinted off into the distance and pointed. "What's going on over there?"

Bright orange spots located closer to the outer rim of the crater flickered in contrast to the dark mountains and, against the moonlit sky, a thick trail of black smoke rising from each. The local settlements were being razed to the ground.

"Let's go!" Aubrey commanded. Jesse prepared to split the ground to provide them a faster route but she quickly stopped him. "No, wait! We're in the Pacific Ring of Fire—you could cause an earthquake. Beca, you and Kommissar go ahead and save as many people as you can!"

Though Kommissar was not open to the idea of saving humans, she joined Beca in her flight to the village. Once there, however, the latter was shocked by what she saw: the villagers were _causing_ the destruction of their own town and, judging by the ongoing fist fights and struggles, the deaths of their own people.

"This is his doing," Kommissar said gravely. "You can feel the darkness jumping, yes?" Beca summoned her Keyblade instinctively but Kommissar shook her head. "They will not turn into Heartless. They are killing each other, and they will die human deaths."

"We have to stop them!"

Beca rushed forward and, with the aid of her blade, somersaulted a gust of wind strong enough to put out the flames of a nearby building. Then she threw another one off to the side to separate two men choking each other. They grew angry and charged at her. She dodged their attacks so as not to hurt them, but eventually they regained their hatred toward each other and wrapped their fingers around the other's throat.

"You cannot save their lives," Kommissar repeated firmly. "The darkness will not leave until the man takes it away. We must find him."

"How do we find someone who can hide his darkness by passing it on?" Beca demanded angrily. She continued putting out fires and diffusing fights while Kommissar only walked behind her, telling her it was hopeless.

"That is why we asked for your help," Kommissar reminded her. "The difficulty lies in locating him; his darkness slips through our fingers every time we attempt to track him. He must be stopped the moment we make contact, lest he flees again."

Beca bit her lip. She saw Aubrey and the others approaching in the distance and turned to Kommissar. "This is an island, right? He can't have escaped so easily. I'll help you find him and the others can stay here—"

"I wouldn't have asked for your numbers if I didn't need them," said Kommissar, her voice rising against Beca's defiance. "We must not waste time! Our victory relies on his swift defeat!"

"Look, you asked for our help—you have your way of doing things and we have ours," Beca responded stubbornly. "We won't let anyone die, not if we can still do something about it."

They both stood, glaring at each other in a deadlock, neither agreeing to the other's plan. When the others arrived, Beca quickly gave them the instruction and then flew off in a hurry. Kommissar was left with no choice but to order Pieter to search a different section of the island and flying off in the direction opposite Beca's.

* * *

 _Click… Click…_

"Sorry, Emily, I don't think this page is helpful either," said Benji. His eyes pored over the large computer screen, trying to catch keywords that would help determine the root of Emily's time traveling power. "These are notes on observations of materials-based powers."

"Hmm…" Emily stood up and peered at the toolbar at the very top of the customized user interface. "What's that?" she asked, pointing at an icon that looked like a web.

Benji clicked on it eagerly, thinking it was a molecular diagram symbolizing research into the mutant origins. "Oh. Power networks," he noted in slight dismay.

Before them was a map of interconnected nodes; the larger systems were at the center, and got smaller and smaller as they moved further away.

Benji hovered over a yellow node on the outer rim of the largest system (labeled 'Elemental Manipulation') and read aloud, "Electricity Manipulation." Connected to it was another node further away labeled 'Electrical Healing.'

"Is this what Charlene meant about overlapping powers?" said Emily, pointing at two differently colored sub-networks joined by two nodes, 'Earth Manipulation' and 'Metal Manipulation.'

"I suppose so. Maybe we can find something that's close to your powers."

Emily nodded and began searching the screen. "There's my phasing ability," she pointed. "It's under 'Molecular Manipulation'… so at least _that's_ not as out-of-this-world as time traveling."

"Yeah, we're looking for something like space-time manipulation… Hey! One of the unregistered mutants we met in New York was a teleporter," recalled Benji. "If her data is in here, that would help."

"There it is!" Emily pointed to a lone, purple node at the corner of the screen. "Oh, but there's not much information on it…"

The report, written by Aubrey, only stated observations of "teleportation-like" powers, based on the battle in New York City. Without access to the teleporter herself, there wasn't much to document about how to develop space-time-manipulating abilities.

Then Emily noticed an almost indistinguishable dotted line connecting the lone purple node to 'Telekinesis.' Out of curiosity, she took control of the mouse and clicked on it. She browsed through the reports and made a logical conclusion.

"If my powers are related to Chloe's, space-time or whatnot, then focus exercises aren't the way to develop them," she said. "I guess that makes sense. During the only times I was able to time travel, I wasn't focused at all."

"It's amazing to think how they started coming up with training regimens back when _all_ the powers were new and unique," Benji said in awe. "It must have been extremely difficult. But now, look, they have whole techniques for 'Organic Manipulation'—and its sub-categories, including my Healing and Kimmy Jin's Bio-morphing… It's incredible."

While Benji marveled over the brilliance of the Institute, Emily focused on the first thing he said. "Hey, let's find out how they _did_ come up with training regimens for new powers," she said. "Mine is new, so let's see how they would have dealt with it. Click on one of the single nodes."

Benji looked for one, found 'Energy Manipulation,' and clicked on it. "I would've guessed all of our powers were some kind of energy manipulation," he commented while the page loaded. "Okay… 'Energy Absorption.' It belonged to someone who left the school two years ago—aw, too bad."

"He was trained in martial arts and, ooh, yoga!"

"That probably won't work for you, though. Focus?"

Emily pouted. "Right. Well, the reason given was 'to discover and manipulate the body's life force in order to manipulate those of others.' So, if we follow that logic… for me to be able to manipulate time, I have to…?"

"… discover your own time?" Benji offered lamely. Then he sighed. "This is tougher than I thought."

"You know, maybe Beca's right. Maybe it's too complicated to learn—"

"No, don't give up!" Benji said hurriedly, not wanting to put an end to spending more time with Emily. "There has to be something in here that can help us…" He turned back to the computer and resumed the search, but it was hard not to notice Emily's lack of enthusiasm. Eventually, he stopped and asked her seriously, "Do you really _not_ want to learn it anymore?"

"I'm not sure…" she said. "When I first realized what I'd done, I thought it would be a really useful power to have. If I had gone back just a couple of hours earlier, I might have been able to stop Chloe from getting kidnapped. But it's like that thing they say about killing baby Hitler, you know? Would you change something really bad in the past if you could? Everyone knows it's not that simple and that the world could be vastly different today as a result…"

Emily furrowed her brow thoughtfully. "I'm just not sure if I would say no to something like that. If I were completely willing to go back a few hours for _Chloe_ , how easy would it be to stretch my comfort to going back one whole day? Two? A week—or even a _year_? I don't trust myself to _not_ make a decision that could affect the entire world."

A long silence followed Emily's reasoning, long enough for her to notice. "You have a habit of clamming up at weird times, did you know that?" she told him with a humorous smile.

"S-sorry," he stuttered. "It's just that… you're _amazing_. I—when you told me about time-traveling I immediately thought of what science could do with it." He shook his head. "I never, for a moment, thought about how it would affect other people negatively. But you, you really care. You don't see your powers as a right, to do with it what you want to. You see it as a privilege to help other people, and you're mindful of not taking advantage.

"I wish…" he said wistfully, "I wish the people out there could hear how carefully you think about using your powers. Then maybe there wouldn't be all this fighting, all the tension and threats."

Emily smiled at him with eyes twinkling with appreciation, and a split second later she was hugging him tightly. "Oh, that's such a sweet thing to say, Benji! Thank you!" She pulled back and added humbly, "I have to give some credit to Aubrey, though. I joined her summer workshop on Mutant Ethics to get closer to her and Chloe but I guess I actually learned a thing or two, huh?"

* * *

Beca was livid. It didn't make any sense. The island was small enough—a tenth of the area of Manhattan—that she, Kommissar, and Pieter had run out of corners to search in under twenty minutes. Yet, they had found _nothing_ ; and worse, once they had returned to the town, Beca learned that they had also failed in saving a single life. Her only consolation was in Kommissar not being smug about it.

"What the hell just happened?" Fat Amy panted after running to meet them. Her face was pale and sickly from the harrowing experience. "It was like the town had gone mad! We couldn't—we couldn't do anything to stop them from _killing_ each other!"

"And the Heartless—where was it?" demanded Aubrey. "Why were the _villagers_ the ones causing the attacks?"

Beca gave her the simplest analogy she could think of. "Do you remember what it was like for us inside the Realm of Darkness?"

"So the darkness made them bad… But it had to come from somewhere, right?" said Jesse.

"Kommissar believes this Heartless—half-Heartless—is a mutant," explained Beca. She now understood, with great regret, why Kommissar had found it imperative to ask for the Barden students' help and why she should have listened. "His powers allow him to transfer energies; that's why it's hard to catch him. When he needs to hide, he puts the darkness in someone else, like what he did with these people."

Aubrey frowned. "Does this mean his powers are amplified by his transformation into a Heartless? Like Chloe's?"

"That is correct," said Kommissar.

"Wouldn't these transfers cause a spike in the darkness meters? Why haven't we been able to catch him?" asked Jesse.

"Or you two for that matter," Cynthia Rose added to Kommissar and Pieter.

"If the darkness does not stay too long in the host, it will not manifest in the same way that humans turn into Heartless. Instead it will only stir hatred and other such feelings on the surface, and will disappear once its host is dead," said Kommissar. "We were successful in locating the mutant now only because he had reached his limit during the time he was imprisoned in the facility where we arrived. The Heartless transformation was finally triggered and we could sense him."

"But he never finished," said Beca. "Because he siphons off the darkness, he'll never become a full Heartless. Right now, he's just an ordinary guy with the abilities of a mutant _and_ a Heartless. He's probably far away from here by now and we have nothing to trace," she added bitterly.

"But you do now." To their surprise, it was Fat Amy who spoke. She gestured around the ruined town. "If this guy wipes his darkness off on others to keep himself hidden, won't this scenario follow him around?"

"Are you saying we should _wait_ and see if another massacre happens?" said Cynthia Rose.

"Hey, it's the only way you can be sure it's him," shrugged Amy. "Otherwise, you're left with what? Searching every square inch of the Earth for him?"

Kommissar's lack of an objection signaled her agreement. "The Fat one surprisingly has brains," remarked Pieter.

"I've got more brains than you have muscles, rock guy," she retorted.

Kommissar turned to Beca. "Then we shall meet again at the next incident. Are you agreeable to this?"

"I don't agree that we should let people die just for us to track him down," she replied coldly. "But… I don't think we have a choice. We'll just have to be there before the killing starts."

The others reluctantly agreed. It was an unusual feeling, leaving a site of mass destruction without the satisfaction of having defeated the cause of it. They forced themselves not to think of the fact that dozens of people had died right in front of their eyes and that they were paradoxically powerless to stop it.

* * *

After emerging through the Corridor and returning to the library, Beca had followed Aubrey's instructions and spent the afternoon taking over the blonde's training sessions with Jesse while she worked on the arguments for Monday's hearing. She was observing the vortex kid practicing his air funneling technique when Jesse sidled up to her.

He didn't say anything for a while; he just wanted to be next to her, watching the students while internally digesting the day they'd had. First, reuniting with their old friends, then being subjected to the FBI, then finding out that the Professor's assistant was a shape-shifter in hiding, and then failing not only to save dozens of people but also to locate the culprit of the vicious attack.

"It feels a bit like the last time," he said glumly.

Beca turned to him. "What do you mean?"

"The atmosphere around here. Tense. Quiet. It's like when the MRA was first signed and…"

"Luke and Stacie left," finished Beca, catching on to Jesse's tone. Fortunately, she had already made up her mind about this. "I'm not a flight risk, Jesse. And if I do leave, I'm not going alone. We made a plan, remember?"

"I know, but what if running won't be that easy after Monday?" he said. "Have you read the thing? They want to split us up. A committee will be sent to judge whether our powers are useful or not, and those that are will be transferred to a military base about two hours from here."

"What do they mean by 'useful'?"

Jesse gave her a look. "You know what it means. Plus, it's a military base so… I doubt we can just walk away. That's why I thought you'd want to walk now, while we still can."

Beca shook her head. "I can't leave you and Aubrey to deal with this alone... What about the rest? The non-useful mutants?"

"They can stay at Barden, but they won't be taught how to improve their powers anymore. They'll learn to control them and…" he sighed, "be reintegrated into civilized society."

Beca huffed and folded her arms across her chest. "Do you think there'll ever be a time they'd believe us when we say there's nothing _wrong_ with mutant?"

Jesse mimicked her pose thoughtfully. "The thing is, I'm not sure if that's absolutely true. I mean, look at what happened on that crater island," he reasoned. "It's just like what happened to Chloe, right? They kept the guy in a lab because they wanted to understand him. He probably didn't have his powers all under control yet, and he lashed out.

"I think the message we should be giving people is not that we're _not_ dangerous, but that Barden teaches us not only to control our powers but also to be _good_ people. Take Aubrey and Luke—they spent half their lives learning this stuff, and you have to admit they are the best people we know. Every mutant needs a sanctuary like Barden to grow without feeling like they're being persecuted."

Beca grinned and started to slow clap. "Wow. You—" She had planned to make a joke but the truth it was based on gave her pause. She turned serious. "You know, I never noticed it before but… the way you are with the students—all that training and mentoring stuff—it's a lot like how Luke was to me when I first came here. I'm really impressed with how much you've grown since we got here, Jesse. And in my book, you're one of the good people, too."

"I've still got a long way to go," Jesse admitted with a small shake of his head. "My first instinct was to have Chloe use her powers for mind control. Luke is living as a fugitive and even he knew it wasn't right."

"Hey, I thought the same thing you did when Chloe first told me. I guess it's the street rat in us that always looks for the easy way out," she joked half-heartedly. "And, look, it helps to have someone with a good head on his shoulders but no one here expects you to actually _be_ Luke, okay? And don't try to deny you've been trying to fill his shoes."

Jesse rolled his eyes. "I've been trying to be more _like_ Luke; I haven't been trying to _replace_ him," he said. "He'll be back soon and things will be back to normal."

 _Normal._ Beca wondered what that felt like. "Yeah…"

"And Chloe, she'll be back… soon?"

Beca grimaced, reliving the bitterness of being tricked into saying Chloe had left her like some treacherous wench in the middle of the night. "If unregistered mutants don't have to hide, then neither does she."

Jesse nodded and stuffed his hands in his pockets. A sly grin was forming at the corners of his mouth. "It must've been tough, saying goodbye to her after last night."

Beca looked up in time to catch his fully formed smirk and rolled her eyes. "Oh, grow up. It's not like it's my first time."

"But it's your first time with someone you love. That's gotta feel different, right?"

Beca raised her eyebrows. "I'm not falling for that, Jesse."

"Come on!" Jesse pleaded playfully. "Here we are talking about how much I've changed while we ignore the biggest change of them all!"

"And that is?"

"You getting over your trust issues! You _falling in love_ —how is that not the biggest thing that has happened in the past year?"

"Seriously, the _biggest_?" laughed Beca. "Not, oh, the fact that our powers were exposed to the whole world, or the fact that there are such things as Heartless roaming around in some parallel dimension?"

"You're deflecting. I'm trying to have a moment with you here, Becs."

"I don't know what to tell you, dude," she said. "Sure, Chloe and I are a 'thing' now, but I don't see the big deal. I did at first, of course, because the whole not-remembering-her thing freaked me out, but… it turned out that this relationship not how I imagined it to be—or how _you_ made me imagine it to be; I don't feel like shouting my feelings for her on the rooftop or having them written across the sky. And I guess I'm just lucky that Chloe doesn't want that, either. It's just us being _us_ , being comfortable around who we really are and knowing that we can disagree on some things and agree on others but still feel exactly the same way about each other. I call her my girlfriend but, honestly—and without all the mushy implications—she's more like my _soul_ mate. I've never felt more… _complete_ with anyone than I do with her."

Beca noticed Jesse's thoughtful silence and realized that she may have been a little insulting by criticizing his ideal romantic gestures, so she decided to throw him a bone. "If that's what people these days are calling 'being in love,' then," she shrugged, "who am I to say I'm not?"

Jesse made a small fist pump and playfully shoved Beca on the shoulder. "I knew I'd get you to crack—or, at least, that Chloe could," he said, before taking off to return to his student.

As she watched Jesse get further and further away, Beca felt the solitude creeping into her consciousness. Amidst all the along with it her earlier musings about the shape-shifter, so she deliberately returned her focus to her own trainee. Beca had enough troubles to keep her up at night; she didn't need to unnecessarily add another one.

Fortunately, after one of the best training sessions she had ever given to the surprised vortex kid, a new distraction came in the form of Emily and Benji, coming to inform her of their own discoveries.

* * *

"Knock, knock?"

"Come in."

"See, this is why I don't tell you knock-knock jokes. You have to ask who's at the door first."

Jesse entered Aubrey's room to see her sitting at her desk poring over the document Agent Paulson had given them, while her laptop's screen displayed a legal website.

"You didn't come down at the dinner bell so I thought I'd check in," he continued when she didn't respond. "You seemed distracted throughout the mission, too. I got the feeling you haven't stopped obsessing over the hearing on Monday."

Aubrey lay down her pen and leaned back on her chair with a sigh. "I haven't. And it's not obsessing, it's _preparing_ ," she added with her signature 'this-is-normal-behavior' tone. "The Professor hasn't returned my calls and we don't have a lawyer anymore—"

"Shh…" hushed Jesse. He walked over to her and began massaging her shoulders gently. "I know. You don't have to tell me. It gets you stressed just recapping our problems."

Aubrey closed her eyes and relaxed. It had been a while since she and Jesse last had this close of a contact and it made her slightly guilty. "I'm sorry we haven't been spending much time with each other lately."

"What are you talking about?" Jesse moved on to massage down her back. "We're together almost all the time."

"Yeah, for training and mutant-related stuff, but not, you know, _romantically_ ," she pointed out. "I have to admit, I'm surprised. I would've pegged you for a needy guy—ow!"

Jesse had poked her in a particularly ticklish spot between her shoulder blades. "Any time with you is plenty romantic for me," he said, giving her a kiss on the top of the head for good measure.

Aubrey turned her head upward and smiled at him. "Thank you. And not just for this, but for everything. You really stepped up these past few months—it's almost like Luke had never left."

Jesse didn't reply at once. He continued to knead the knots out of Aubrey's back for a while, and when she was satisfactorily relaxed he asked, "Do I make you happy?"

Aubrey's stiffened slightly, before relaxing again. She swiveled around in her chair and smirked. "That's right. You're not a needy guy, you're a _jealous_ guy."

"This has nothing to do with jealousy, honest." He sat down on her bed with his hand over his heart. "Come on, seriously. I want to know."

Aubrey looked apologetic. "Look, I know I don't always shower you with affection—"

"And I get that," Jesse said quickly. "In fact, I like that you don't. It makes the rare times that you do feel more special."

"Then why—?"

"I just want to know if you're happy," he said simply. "I made a promise when we got together that I'd give you my world, remember?"

Aubrey gave him a wry smile. "And now you're checking on your returns?"

"I wouldn't put it like that exactly," chuckled Jesse. "But a guy could do with a performance review every once in a while."

Aubrey laughed. "Trust me, you do _not_ want to be subjected to a performance review designed by me." She rolled closer to the bed and kissed him. "You're doing great. I couldn't ask for a better boyfriend, really. Now come on, I haven't been able to come up with new arguments for an hour, might as well get some dinner."

"I could join you if you'd like. I'll bring the coffee."

"See? Perfect boyfriend."

* * *

Out of nowhere, an entire office cubicle flew across the warehouse and crashed against the wall. Stacie, Bumper, Alice, and the rest of the unregistered mutants leapt into fighting stances and stared expectantly into the center of the portal. As a large number of documents cascaded off the grey desk and onto the granite floor, four figures came diving out of the portal, with bullets flying over their heads.

One bullet ricocheted off the wall and stopped in midair just a foot from Bumper's nose. Another portal was created directly before the wall and the mutants heard a pained grunt coming from the other end. Lilly quickly closed both portals and a ringing silence replaced the commotion.

"What the hell happened?" demanded Stacie.

"We ran into a bit of trouble," panted Luke. He took Stacie's outstretched arm and pulled himself up. He twisted his torso and lifted his shirt to show her two harsh-looking wounds below his ribcage. "They hit Justin with a taser. We couldn't stick together with me conducting all that electricity so I had to drop my armor. Things went downhill quickly after that."

"I thought you were bringing back a box of documents, not a whole _desk_ of them," noted Alice, unenthusiastically helping Tommy to his feet.

"There wasn't enough cover and time to make the switch," the hacker said. "We had to wing it and just take the whole thing."

"But the point of the switch was to buy us time, so they wouldn't know what we were up to," said Stacie.

"So what?" asked Unicycle. "It's still worth it if it takes down the MRA, right?"

"But now it's a race," said Luke. He picked up one folder and thrust it into Bumper's chest. "On the legal battlefield, to see who can come up with a better argument."

He and Stacie exchanged knowing looks. "So be prepared for another major attack to be blamed on us," she said, grabbing a folder herself.

The unregistered mutants worked together to segregate the possibly thousands of classified government documents and form arguments that they could then pass on to the registered mutants, along with the evidence. Miles and miles away, Aubrey was doing the same thing; but unlike them she was acutely aware that they had only one day left before the hearing.

* * *

 **Response to Reviews:**

 **xcombixgirlx (May 11)** \- Thank you for sticking around! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. The finale is coming real soon!

 **RJRMovieFan (several hours ago)** \- Wow! I didn't expect anyone would actually take my advice and reread the whole thing – although, of course, if there were ever someone who would, it would be you! Congrats and thanks for the effort! I can't wait to blow this up hehe. I've decided I won't work on Season Four until PP3 is out – or until I've learned enough about the plot to make assumptions about the new characters – so I can return to being a reader and not a writer. I desperately need to catch up on so many fics. It's funny you should mention the comic though. I recently made a single-page comic, which I was quite pleased with, about my latest ship from Avatar The Legend of Aang. It felt a lot easier than doing one for PP 'cause TLA is already an animated cartoon lol. Anyway, I can't wait to bring Chloe back! Thank you so much for your continuing support! I hope I deliver.

* * *

 **A/N:** Aaaah, it's almost done! I haven't outlined the next chapter but there could be either one or two left for Season 3. It's not much of a spoiler if I reveal that this new half-Heartless, half-mutant will be the season finale boss fight, is it? Lol.


	28. Catch

**A/N:** Long read up ahead! I hurried through editing, meaning didn't cut as many scenes to shorten the chapter, so I could post before the PP3 trailer comes out. Mostly action scenes but the exposition scenes will tie in to revelations in the finale next chapter. Hope you enjoy.

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Eight: Catch**

 _Luke spotted the person he was searching for descending the short flight of steps from the boys' dormitory._ _He called out his name and jogged the last few steps to catch up to his bespectacled friend and hand him a brightly colored paper. "Fresh off the library's printers!" he said cheerfully. "I was thinking we could post them at rec centers downtown. We might find more people interested in cricket if we widen our candidate pool."_

 _Donald read the flyer and sniggered. "Still living in the twentieth century, I see. Dude, I posted an ad on Craigslist, like, weeks ago. No bites."_

 _Luke's shoulder's sagged. "Honestly, what does it take to get people interested in cricket?"_

" _It's an imperial thing. It has to be baked in._ _" Donald pulled down the sleeve of his maroon hoodie and clucked his tongue. "Look, I'd love to help but I gotta go meet the Prof."_

" _Oh, right. Your assessment," nodded Luke. "Any idea what's going down?"_

 _Donald shook his head. "Not a clue. But if I go home for the holidays_ still _unable to touch people, my parents are going to send me to India to live with the monks… I'm starting to think they aren't kidding."_

 _They bumped elbows in farewell and Donald went on his way. When he passed Alice and Lana, arms linked and giggling as they made their way to the girls' dormitory_ , h _e self-consciously pulled his sleeves further over his black cotton gloves (he refused to wear the elbow-length ones Luke had given him, as they were very overtly feminine)._ _He turned a corner and passed the painting of a horse running with its mane billowing wildly behind it that he had always thought was funny, crossed the regal antechamber, and let himself in the Professor's office._

" _Yo," he greeted the headmaster, taking a seat across the mahogany desk. Ask usual, the Professor's raven-haired assistant sat in the corner with a recorder and a pen at the ready._

" _Good afternoon, Donald," the Professor greeted warmly. "How are you doing today?"_

" _Can't complain."_

" _Have you been doing your meditation exercises?"_

" _You mean yoga?_

" _Yes."_

" _Yeah."_

" _And?"_

 _Donald shrugged. "I haven't really tested if it works."_

" _I see. Well, why don't you try now?"_

 _The Professor held out his hand but_ _Donald hesitated. There was no trace of apprehension on the man's face so, reluctantly, he extended his arm and touched the Professor's palm with the tip of his index finger._

 _A tingling feeling later, the Professor's elbow went slack and fell with a loud_ thud _onto the desk. But once the contact was severed as a result, the recovery was immediate. "So I guess that answers the question," the Professor noted casually._

 _Donald slumped back in his chair, relieved. The tingling in his arm had disappeared just as quickly and no one seemed worse for wear. "I don't know, maybe you're just a weak old man," he joked. "I could have a go at Charlene to check."_

" _That won't be necessary. And I keep it tight, if I may say so myself," the Professor chuckled. "But... I would like to change our approach. Rather than trying to train your mind and body to_ inhibit _your powers, we will start looking into_ how _they work, and stopping them from there."_

 _The Professor reached below his desk and lifted up a small cage, inside of which were several white mice. Seeing Donald frown, he added, "Keep an open mind. This may be the only way we can get to the bottom of your unique powers."_

* * *

Nearly a week had passed with the Barden mutants in constant vigilance, ready to depart at a moment's notice if another mysterious wave of self-inflicted terror occurred anywhere in the world. Their attentions were split, however, in the aftermath of the hearing, which had gone just as Aubrey expected. Mutants were being reevaluated and assigned one of two locations based on their perceived threat or, as the mutants saw it, their "usefulness" in fighting.

In between more intensive combat training sessions, Aubrey and Jesse focused on making the transition to the military base as smooth as possible for the students, while Beca was placed in charge of keeping an eye out for the attack, a job that she silently welcomed as a distraction.

While the surprise and novelty of Charlene's identity as a shape-shifter had quickly worn off on the others when they realized that no one was truly in danger from it, Beca couldn't stop herself from returning to it. Everyone accepted the theory that Charlene had fled the school on account of being exposed as an unregistered mutant, and that her need to talk to Beca must have stemmed from a (misguided) belief she would be the most receptive to an explanation.

But Beca did not share these assumptions at all. She couldn't shake the ominous feeling that her hunch was right; but whenever she broached the subject in her mind—which often happened when she was alone with her thoughts—a wave of nausea, anger, and restlessness forced her to turn away.

Fortunately, Emily had often been present to distract Beca whenever it did in the past few days. The two had been spending more time with each other, since homeschool teachers were temporarily barred from entering the premises during the transition and also since Beca had stopped attending her classes at the university long ago. Beca didn't mind the new company. She was glad that Emily had outgrown her shyness; her perpetual (save for today) cheerfulness felt comfortably like having Chloe around again, and the constant chattering kept Beca's mind busy.

"It's just not fair! I don't think they understand how phasing can be _extremely_ useful," the fifteen-year-old complained.

Beca hummed vaguely and clicked on a news alert about a fire in Bangladesh.

"Do you think I should've used it on the evaluator, like what Fat Amy did?" Emily added as an afterthought.

"I wouldn't recommend doing _anything_ Fat Amy does," Beca said absent-mindedly. There was nothing mysterious or self-inflicted about the factory fire, so she clicked on another alert.

"Then how can I get them to assign me to Fort Benning?"

Beca swiveled her chair around to face the younger brunette with raised eyebrows. "Why would you even _want_ to be assigned there? You understand that we're basically being _conscripted_ , right?"

"It isn't that I want to be in the army," said Emily. "But knowing what I know about everything, I just feel like staying here makes me… I don't know. _Useless_."

Beca softened. Though Emily's expression had much more pout, it was still very similar to the one Chloe wore once upon a time, and it reminded Beca of how badly she had dealt with this situation the first time. But for some reason, she was less willing to make concessions against Emily's safety just to make the girl feel better. Barely five months at the school, Emily was simply _too young_ to be caught up in this fight; whereas Chloe was marginally more mature and more capable of fighting.

Besides, none of them ever intended Emily—or Benji and Fat Amy for that matter—to find out how seriously things were escalating outside Barden's walls. As the most experienced mutants, Beca, Aubrey, and Jesse felt an obligation to keep the students blissfully unaware. Beca felt a special protectiveness toward Emily that was different from what she felt for Chloe. It was oddly authoritative and… motherly.

Outside of Beca's thoughts, Emily was mistaking her silence as agreement. "You think so, too?" Her big brown eyes widened and her bottom lip quivered.

"Of course not!" Beca said hurriedly. "I was just thinking… Chloe said the same thing right after we got back from New York. She said she felt useless."

"Oh." Emily's eyes lowered and she nodded in understanding. She, Benji, and Fat Amy had already been filled in on Chloe's situation to get them to focus on the school's other problems instead of Chloe's safety, but Emily knew not a day passed that Beca herself didn't worry. "You must miss her a lot."

"I'm glad Chloe's getting what she wants," Beca said honestly. "I just wish I knew if she's safe, wherever she is. That's really all I want—and that's also why we prefer that you _aren't_ assigned to the base," she added pointedly. "You're much safer here, Emily. Who knows what else they'll be asking us to do once we get there…"

Beca stopped herself. She knew it was a mistake to worry Emily with stories of Chloe's detainment, or even the half-Heartless half-mutant's, under the pretense of scientific research, so she clumsily changed the subject. "Uh, maybe if they knew you could time-travel? How's that going anyway?"

Emily took the bait and went on about her fruitless efforts to try to activate her newfound powers. Beca nodded along and, every once in a while, she'd turn back to the computer and click on another news alert.

* * *

Hundreds of miles away, Tommy refreshed his computer screen, three seconds after his last attempt.

Nothing new on the news feed.

Tired of being hunched over dozens of taped-together documents for hours, Tommy rolled his shoulders while, beside him, Justin accepted a few more papers from Flo with a grateful nod.

A week had passed since their disastrous though arguably successful trip to AMG, but progress was moving glacially. It turned out that whoever took over the anti-mutant weapon project had the foresight to shred most of the documents they inherited from the previous team. So the group of unregistered mutants had formed an assembly line and spent several days laboriously sifting through strips of shredded paper, taping them back together, and handing them off to Justin and Tommy for reorganization.

"Uh… Flo?" Justin frowned down at the papers in his hands. Random words were morphed together incoherently or cut off midway. "Are you sure you did this right?"

Flo smiled at him sweetly and shrugged before turning back to the giant pile of paper strips at the center of the warehouse.

Justin sighed and began disassembling the papers handed to him. As he did so, he glanced over to the stack of already deciphered documents and silently cursed the universe for being such a tease. All they had to show after a week's worth of work was that _something_ had been covered up in the 1987 SRA, but they had yet to reach the precise document he saw when he first acquired the box.

Justin and Tommy had both been nervously hoping that that they didn't break the law for nothing.

To everyone's surprise, however, nothing had come of their break-in at AMG; nothing about how "fugitive mutants were undermining the nation's defenses" or any such drivel, which they expected after their plan had gone downhill.

The reason could have been that it was overshadowed by the surprise MRA hearing, the meaning of which Stacie and Luke were discussing in undertones nearby. The news had caused them to be on high alert (they expected another city attack) but, again, their expectations were not met. Nothing disastrous that could be blamed on mutants happened the entire week.

Two perfect opportunities to further the anti-mutant agenda, squandered. It only added to the feeling that, somewhere, wheels were silently turning, spun by invisible hands preparing for the right moment to strike.

"I still think they're plotting to pit us against each other," Stacie was saying, just loudly enough to be overheard. "With Aubrey and the others under the military's thumb, the next city attack will force us into another reunion, and they'll have no choice but to fight us."

Luke shook his head. "I'd like to think they're above petty mind games. They don't care about using the Barden mutants against us; that would only make _registering_ look good. It's a waste of time. Cynthia Rose said they wanted us _gone_ …" He rubbed his stubbled chin thoughtfully. "I think there's another reason they aren't responding to our break-in and why there hasn't been another attack. They're waiting for something."

Tommy and Justin exchanged looks and gulped. If the enemy _was_ waiting, keeping the unregistered mutants occupied with a wild goose chase would be the perfect way to buy time.

Was there something they missed? Some detail they hadn't considered when coming up with the plan to steal the documents? The lack of stamps or signatures on the documents before them suggested that they hadn't been read recently; and yet, with a whole dedicated team sifting through them for a week, why haven't they found anything?

Tommy instinctively reached his arm over to the keyboard to refresh his computer again. Though nothing was added to the list of news alerts, one particular story had risen to the highest priority.

* * *

Beca tapped her fist on Aubrey's doorframe. "Damascus, Syria. Let's go."

The blonde gave a quick nod and rose from her desk automatically. While crossing her room she pulled her sweater over her head, revealing the sleek mission suit she wore underneath. Emily would have gasped in admiration and jealousy if she hadn't already witnessed Beca do the same moments ago. Instead, she was pleading.

" _Please?_ I'm sure I can help; I read your report and everything! He won't be able to touch me—"

"Emily, _no_."

"What's going on?" asked Aubrey, closing the door behind her.

"Emily wants to go," Beca said with a look that shifted the responsibility of rejection to Aubrey.

"Sorry, Em, but it's too dangerous and you're not eighteen yet."

"But—!"

They reached the bottom step of the dormitory staircase the exact moment that, across the hallway, Jesse and Benji descended from theirs, both wearing mission suits.

Emily's jaw dropped. " _Benji_ gets to go!?"

The healer froze with guilt and hid himself behind Jesse.

"Well, it makes sense to have a healer to support us," Aubrey told the disappointed brunette. "Besides, we've strategized a ranged approach against the enemy. I don't think you'll be useful in this scenario."

"But also because we have a more important mission for you," Beca quickly followed up, worried that Emily would take it the wrong way. "Right, Bree?"

Aubrey raised an eyebrow. "We do?"

Beca glared at her.

"Right…" the blonde said slowly, her eyes darting to the side as she thought of one. "Right! Very important." She jerked her thumb back the way they came from. "If you check my desk, there's a list of names of those being transferred to the base, along with their identification numbers. Could you print them out and make a couple of bag tags for everyone?"

Beca rolled her eyes and pressed a palm to her forehead. Emily, however, was too nice not to oblige and climbed back up the steps carrying an aura of dejection with her.

When she was out of earshot, Beca turned to Aubrey. "You know, you and I could run a hotline dedicated to lowering people's self-esteem. We'd be great at it."

* * *

Cynthia Rose was already at the foyer waiting. Beca opened a Corridor in the middle of the entrance hall and, once they were through and into the Realm, they met Kommissar and Pieter, as per their arrangement. The mutants wordlessly climbed onto Pieter's palm to begin the shortcut journey to their destination halfway across the world.

They sensed the familiar, thick and heavy atmosphere of darkness surrounding the small suburb where Kommissar had brought them, but the absence of rioting gave them hope that they came just in time. The sun had already set in this part of the world and the streetlights that hadn't been switched on yet were only now coming to life.

Though the night seemed peaceful and undisturbed, faint gunshots and small blasts tugged at their attentions. Jesse raised the ground beneath them to give them a better view above the buildings, and that was when they realized that they had arrived too early for _this_ particular area.

A massive fight was going on a few hundred yards away, judging by the noise. They had to squint to see it but the mutant and Heartless hybrid was definitely there, at the center of a marble courtyard lined by archways, being backed into a corner by the bright sparks of gunfire from local militia.

Beca and Kommissar immediately flew ahead, both eager to face an opponent that could (and already managed to) slip easily from their detection.

On her part, Beca strongly felt the need to redeem her mistake of not taking the mutant and his abilities seriously, and she vowed to defeat him the first chance she got.

She had asked Cynthia Rose to encode his absorbing ability into Barden's AI simulator and went a few rounds against her own powers. Going one-on-one always ended in a victory, since she knew her own weaknesses enough to exploit them; but when she had tried going against _all_ powers, it was a quick defeat. She knew that the only way they could really defeat this monster was to attack it with everything they've got, while making sure that it never got a chance to return the favor.

Zeroing in on the battlefield from above gave Beca her first glimpse of the semi-transitioned Heartless and she recalled circling above a similar Heartless (that she didn't know at the time belonged to Chloe) in a cul-de-sac in Florida nearly a year ago. Kommissar and Pieter, and even Benji, were decent additions to their team, but she found herself wishing that Luke and Stacie were there as well. Their rapport and camaraderie, built during months of training together, were invaluable in a fight like this.

Beca summoned her Keyblade and spun forward in midair, using the downward momentum to increase the force of her air swipe. It was an obvious first strike move, but she banked on the darkness giving her the element of surprise. A flash of light from an ill-timed bomb gave her away, unfortunately, and her target dodged the attack.

Up close, Beca was surprised by how much more _human_ he looked compared to the Heartless they had fought in Florida. His eyes were severely bloodshot, not golden, and his still human-like hair was wild and unkempt. Though no less sickly-looking, his skin hadn't taken the ghostly pallor of Chloe's Heartless, but was darker and earthier.

But what Beca noticed the most was that, while the darkness around him felt just as suffocating, it didn't make him more formidable. Chloe's Heartless had been terrifying to the extent that Beca had felt a shiver run down her spine upon seeing it up close. The Heartless in front of her now only made her feel… pity. And watching him run to take cover from bullets only intensified that emotion.

He possessed not a fraction of the confidence Chloe's Heartless had.

"Do not underestimate him," warned Kommissar, seeing Beca halt her advance. "He gets no power from these weak humans other than fuel for his darkness. The threat is his mutant abilities. And soon enough…" She waved a hand over to the militia, and Beca watched in horror as one of them yelled something she couldn't understand and pointed his gun at his own comrade.

"No—wait!"

 _BANG._

Chaos ensued after the first victim fell. Even Beca feared getting caught in the mad crossfire and flew behind a marble pillar for cover. She felt the ground shake beneath her, signaling that Jesse and the others had caught up. A light _tick_ followed by a _pshhhh_ informed her that Cynthia Rose had unleashed a stun bomb, which she had modified to work against humans as well as Heartless now.

Beca relaxed; at least the senseless killings would stop. She left her position behind the pillar and strained her eyes to locate the enemy in the dark. Several streetlights had gone out during the fight so Beca had to leap to the top of a nearby structure to get a better look.

Cynthia Rose was still throwing harmless bombs toward the streets to discourage people from approaching the battlefield. Unfortunately, the smoke also served to provide cover for their target, and the mutant-Heartless managed to sneak up on Cynthia Rose and tackle her to the ground. The hands flying desperately and inappropriately around her body, searching for bare skin to touch, would have seemed comical if not for the implication of their success.

His fingers brushed her face and started glowing an instant before a flash bomb detonated between them. Cynthia Rose used the blinding distraction to crawl away as fast as her weakening body allowed her to. Jesse brought up a slab of concrete to block the mutant-Heartless from grabbing her ankle, but once his hands made contact with it and he witnessed it charge with energy at his touch, the mutant-Heartless used the strength his Heartless half granted him to lift the slab above his head.

Jesse quickly turned the rock into useless rubble before he could bring it down on Cynthia Rose, and Beca swung her Keyblade to hit the back of his knees with a powerful blade of air that forced him to the ground. A flash of light and a loud crackle followed her attack, as Aubrey unleashed a bolt of lightning that burned his calves.

Their enemy let out a Heartless-like roar and got to his feet to throw an ugly grimace in Aubrey's direction just as Kommissar and Pieter took their positions on either side of her. He turned again and saw Jesse, Beca, and Cynthia Rose, completing the circle in which they were surrounding him.

From behind a pile of debris, Benji came out shaking from head to toe. "C-Cynthia Rose, are you okay?"

The bomb expert took several deep breaths and steadied herself on shaky legs. She waved him off. "It's nothing. I'm fine."

"Benji, stay back!" Jesse warned. "We can't let him touch _you_ of all people."

" _Jesse!_ " Beca—and everyone else—glared at him. They were used to yelling out strategies in the heat of battle, since Heartless were generally unintelligent creatures; this was their first encounter with a sentient one since Chloe's.

Realizing his mistake, Jesse hurriedly formed a tent out of a mixture of earth and stray scraps of metal to shield Benji, just in time to block another piece of explosive rubble thrown his way. Thus, the next few minutes were spent protecting their healer from the mutant-Heartless chasing him—until eventually it appeared that Cynthia Rose's powers were wearing off.

When a block of marble flew past their heads without exploding, Beca yelled, "Attack!" and she, Aubrey, Jesse, and Cynthia Rose spun on their heels and threw wind, lightning, earth, and explosives at the enemy. Their massive combined attack dealt sufficient damage to bring their target to his knees once again and this time Jesse followed up by trapping him into the earth.

They closed in for the finishing blow.

From the sidelines, Kommissar and Pieter watched intently. The fight was going much better than theirs had, which was expected since the Barden mutants never needed to come within arm's reach of the enemy until the very end. They only had to ensure that—

The conical rock prison that held the mutant-Heartless in place up to his neck cracked down the middle and an arm shot out and grasped the end of Beca's Keyblade. Beca had tried to access his heart to rid it of its darkness, as she did with all human victims of Heartless attacks, but she miscalculated the distance and was jerked forward by her own weapon.

The mutant-Heartless grabbed the bare hand curled around the Keyblade's hilt.

Rather than the intense pain she was expecting, Beca felt only a weird tingle run up and down her arm before it turned to jelly. She lost her grip and dropped the Keyblade. The feeling spread and soon she felt her entire body grow weak and heavy.

With renewed energy stolen from Beca, the mutant-Heartless leapt into the air and made a few twirls, relishing in the experience of once again being able to fly, as it did after absorbing Kommissar the week before.

Pieter made to rush forward but Kommissar held him back.

" _We must not let it hold more than one of our abilities at any single moment,_ " she said. " _Wear him down._ "

This was one strategy that _could_ have been communicated out loud without repercussion but was, unfortunately, not. And so, after Jesse had slid Beca into the sanctuary with Benji, the mutantss started making the wrong decisions.

Calling out to Aubrey to repeat their old combo, Cynthia Rose threw a smoke die to the left of the mutant, expecting him to instinctively fly closer to the power lines on his right, which Aubrey could then use to amplify her electric shock. But with an enthusiastic wave of his arm, the mutant-Heartless simply sent the die flying back down towards them, engulfing them in smoke upon explosion.

"Shit!"

"Spread out!"

With exceptionally fast flying that he didn't possess earlier, the mutant-Heartless managed to cut through the smoke and grab both girls by their throats. A brush against her skin had already severly weakened Cynthia Rose; a tight grip around the neck was much more unpleasant than anything either of them had ever experienced. She felt Aubrey's lightning all over her skin and they were both squirming in pain by the time Jesse spotted them in the night sky.

Sensing imminent defeat, Kommissar and Pieter chose this moment to intervene.

* * *

"Where does it hurt?" Benji lifted Beca's arm lightly and examined her wrist.

The brunette shook her head in exhaustion. "It doesn't hurt. I just feel… _drained._ "

"Were your powers absorbed or did he just copy them?"

Beca tried to conjure a ball of air and failed. She groaned. "Absorbed. It's only temporary, but it feels like I've just had the life sucked out of me."

Benji paused. "Like a _life force_ was drained out of you?"

"If you can call our powers a life force, yeah." Beca sat up. "Why?"

"It's just weird," he said slowly. "When Emily and I went through the book like you asked us to, we found someone who had powers like that. Do you think this Heartless did something to that mutant?"

"Benji... this Heartless _is_ a mutant!"

Benji gaped. "You don't think—?"

Beca scrambled to her feet. "We have to tell—"

The small opening at the end of the cave widened and Aubrey and Cynthia Rose came sliding in on a bed of sand, groaning and emitting electric sparks at random.

"I know… who…" Aubrey gasped between breaths. "I know who he is!"

* * *

"Are you _sure_ it's mutants?" Bumper asked for the millionth time.

"What other type of human could be _fly_ if not mutants?" argued Tommy. "I'm telling you, this report is legit. Listen to this, ' _witnesses describe flying individuals, localized earthquakes, and intermittent lightning strikes_. _'_ Luke and Stacie already said that _easily_ fits the description of three of your classmates."

"But if they're fighting abroad, it's probably just an ordinary Heartless, not the frame-up," reasoned Alice. "I mean, why Syria? Why would they bother mixing their anti-mutant message with an already complicated issue in the Middle East? Conflict there has been going on for over a year, blaming it on mutants would seem like a cheap shot—or a cop out."

"Either way, shouldn't we still help?" Justin said meekly. "You guys are trying to fix your image as vigilantes, right? This could be a good PR move, staged or not."

"Yeah, but unlike those guys at Barden, we _don't_ have a private jet that could get us there fast enough," Unicycle pointed out.

"So what? We got to New York that one time," shrugged Bumper. "Lilly can get us there, easy!"

The teleporter shook her head vigorously.

"It doesn't seem like we have a choice," said Stacie, speaking directly to Luke whom she knew desperately wanted to help. She did, too, but they had to face the facts. "There's no way we can get there."

"Uh, we don't have to anyway," Tommy announced suddenly. He had refreshed his computer again and read the latest update. "The fighting's over."

"What happened?"

"A huge earthquake split the city," Tommy read in awe, "which stopped the national military from intervening… And tweets are coming in saying they can't hear the sounds of fighting anymore."

"A huge earthquake? Must have been Jesse."

"What about the Heartless? The mutants?" asked Stacie.

Tommy shook his head. "Reports say the place is deserted. We'll probably know more after the investigation."

Alice shrugged and returned to her work. "I'm telling you, it was just an ordinary Heartless attack. We've dealt with Heartless countless times before and Beca and the others are pros. That's probably why the fight was over so quickly."

* * *

"He's one of us! He was a student _at_ Barden not too long ago," explained Aubrey. "I can't believe I didn't make the connection—I'm sorry, did I hit you?"

Cynthia Rose shook her head. Sparks had flown from her hands that caused them all to jump. "Nah, I think it was just an aftershock. Go on."

"Does knowing _who_ he is help us defeat him?" Beca asked grumpily. She opened and closed her fist, still waiting for her powers to return to their normal strength, while the rest of the team stood around her in the library wearing serious expressions.

They did not take their defeat in Damascus well. It was disappointing, but most of all humiliating, how everything unraveled after just one wrong move. They were made utterly _powerless_ —and being beaten by their own abilities was just icing on the cake. Even Beca couldn't have predicted how quickly they had had to retreat into the Realm of Darkness; while training against her teammates' combined powers, she never simulated actually _losing_ her own. They severely underestimated the debilitating effects of being drained.

When all the mutants were knocked down within just ninety seconds of initiating the fight, Kommissar and Pieter had made the decision to fight another day. After saving Jesse from being crushed by his own rock tower, they opened a Corridor and threw their mutant companions into the Realm of Darkness. Despite their disheartened state, the mutants agreed to reunite at the next attack and parted with the two stewards of Darkness, but not before receiving a scathing (and unwelcome) critique of their strategy.

"It might, if we can use familiarity to calm him down," Aubrey told Beca. "His name is Donald. I didn't know much about him since the Professor took over his training, but I do remember he avoided touching anyone in yoga class at the university because it caused people to faint. I don't think anyone realized what it might do to _mutants_."

"Is there anything you recorded in the book that we can use against him?" asked Cynthia Rose. "A weakness maybe, or a limitation?"

Aubrey shook her head. "I can check again but I'm fairly sure his was another no-progress case, like Chloe's. The goal was for him to be able to handle physical contact but the Professor was stumped by how to teach that without _making_ him touch somebody."

"What happened to him?" Jesse asked, and Beca suddenly remembered a conversation she had with Luke her first week at Barden.

"Is he Luke's friend who left?" she asked. "I thought you could only leave Barden if you've successfully controlled your powers?"

"That's true but, if you think about it, there's nothing really stopping you from leaving," said Aubrey. "The Professor must have seen nothing wrong with letting him go, otherwise Luke and I would have been asked to track him down, like we did with other recruits. But… I have no idea how we found Donald in Japan." She shook her head in confusion. "We should really get Luke to talk to him—and Bumper, too. They were good friends."

"Do you really think that will help?" Cynthia Rose asked seriously. "Because I may have an idea how to make that happen."

"Well, even if Donald doesn't respond to a familiar face, we could still use all the manpower we can get," reasoned Jesse. "As long as we make sure that he can't absorb more powers than we can handle next time."

Cynthia Rose nodded. "It's a huge swing but… what if we use our failure today to our advantage? We tell Congress that we _can't_ defeat the new Heartless, not without help from other mutants, in the likely event that it comes here."

"They wouldn't buy that," Beca said skeptically. "Besides, Donald still _looks_ human. And without any powers to absorb, he's only as strong as, I don't know, a level _six_ Heartless. I don't see why our own military wouldn't have the guts to take him out themselves."

"They won't because we'll tell them what Donald can do as a half- _Heartless_ hybrid," explained Cynthia Rose. "You saw what happened to those soldiers, and to the townspeople on that island. Killing by friendly fire is not an image they'd want civilians to see or know about. Can you imagine the _fear_ if Americans were faced with the possibility of their military turning on the very people it swore to protect? Not that Donald _could_ do that, but still," she added. "It's all about the image."

Beca did imagine, and she suddenly found herself seeing Chloe's argument against controlling minds from a different perspective. What was worrying was not the idea that Chloe _would_ do it, but the paranoia over a power strong enough to undermine the foundations of reality and use it against millions of people.

"It's worth a shot," said Aubrey. "We'll have a chance to talk to a representative tomorrow when we get transferred to Fort Benning. The press will probably be there as well, so at least we've got coverage."

"Let's just hope Donald doesn't decide to go ape-shit any time soon," muttered Beca. "I don't think my ego can handle a _third_ consecutive failed mission."

"The consequences of this fight involve more than just your ego, Beca," chastised Aubrey. But after a pause, she conceded, "But yes, the mutant side totally needs a win, and soon."

* * *

 _Donald stared at the mice sniffing around in their cage for minutes before he gathered the courage to move. He had been taught since childhood to respect animals, but it was a belief he never really internalized until faced with an active role in its desecration. Donald just told himself that it was one of those "do as I say and not as I do" sorts of rules, and that there were some cases in which it was forgivable._

 _This_ had _to be one of those cases._

 _Donald reached out and stroked the edge of one mouse's fur, being careful not to make contact with the pale pink flesh underneath. The skin on his finger relished in the soft, fluffy texture—before he jerked his hand back when the mouse turned its nose to sniff him._

 _If it helped him be less of a danger to everyone, then hurting these lab mice—who were bred for the purpose of scientific research anyway—was justified, wasn't it?_

 _His hesitation lay in the fact that he wasn't certain it_ would _help. What if he realized nothing at all from the exercise? If humans fainted from touching him, what might possibly happen to a mouse?_

 _Sighing, Donald decided that it wasn't doing him any good to ask such questions; he would never truly know the answer without going through the experience. He opened the cage door and placed his bare finger across the path, a few inches from the gate—that way he wasn't_ actively _hurting them. If one happened to lay its paw on him, then he could argue to the nagging voice at the back of his mind that the mouse did it to itself._

 _Unfortunately—or perhaps by intentional design—the mice ignored his finger and tottered alongside the cage instead. They sniffed at his notebook and at crumbs left behind from a sandwich Donald had eaten earlier, and continued exploring his desk._

" _I guess we could call that Day One," he said. "It was a failure, but no results are results in themselves—that's what Posen always says anyway."_

 _After a few minutes of poking the mice with a pen to shepherd them back into their cages, Donald left his room to get some cheese cubes from the kitchen to lure the mice inside. As he passed a window he caught a glimpse of the training grounds below and saw Bumper, Unicycle and some other guys playing their variation of touch football_ _—_ _with abilities._

 _He watched wistfully, but also somewhat appreciatively because he knew that if he went outside at that moment they would insist on playing volleyball or ultimate instead just so he could join._

 _But the longing for boyish roughhousing, a mark of his pre-teen years that never developed into its more violent and amusing teenage version, was nothing compared to what became his longing for what had literally just bumped into him._

" _Oh—shit!"_

 _Unlike typical gentlemen, Donald's first instinct after bumping into his fellow female student was not remorse, and his reaction was not offering a hand to help her up; they were fear and shoving his hands into his hoodie, respectively. In his haste to get downstairs, he had completely forgotten to put his gloves back on._

" _No need," Lana waved him off when he offered his elbow too late. She got to her feet and dusted her knees. "I get it. You can't touch people."_

" _I'm really sorry."_

" _Hey, we're all freaks here," she said with a shrug. "I learned not to judge. And look, I know the Professor said absolutely no touching but… I had an idea."_

 _Lana raised her hand and Donald watched as the tip of her index finger turned to solid crystal, shiny and nearly translucent. The transformation spread downward with a light crackle and stopped just below her wrist. "May I?"_

 _She extended her hand as if to offer him a handshake but, again, Donald hesitated. When the Professor had told everyone, during his awkward first dinner at Barden, not to make contact with his skin, the warning had scarred, not his soon-to-be classmates, but Donald himself. Since then he believed it was his responsibility to make sure that_ no one _touched him._

 _But even though the hand, sparkling enticingly like a metaphoric prize, would feel nothing like the human flesh he hadn't felt in years, it was still a hand. It had fingers that interlocked with others and it moved in a graceful yet oddly creepy way. The offer was all too tempting._

" _Promise to let go the_ second _you start to feel something, okay?" he warned. When Lana nodded, he mirrored her hand, keeping a wide enough gap in between, and took a deep breath._

 _It felt as he expected: cold, hard, flat in some places while bumpy in others. But it was undeniably a hand. As he ran his thumb over Lana's crystalized knuckle he realized he had been counting '_ one Mississippi, two Mississippi' _in his head—and had kept going._

 _He looked up and grinned at Lana after 'four Mississippi' and saw that she was doing the same, looking very pleased with herself. But then, with no other warning than a brief look of discomfort, diamond reverted to flesh, and Lana's knees gave way._

 _Donald had barely registered the softness when he immediately pulled his arm back. His body felt very warm and very stiff, then after a single blink his vision changed as though it were filtered by cloudy glass. In his periphery he saw Lana struggling to get back up, but he was more preoccupied with the fact that his hands, and gradually every other part of his body, had turned to diamond._

* * *

Cynthia Rose's plan to give unregistered mutants some respite from hiding proceeded surprisingly smoothly over the next few days.

There was initial pushback from some senators confident in the country's own strength, but due to the overblown media coverage (something the mutants never imagined they'd one day be thankful for) on Damascus, it became less important that the U.S. _could_ defend against the threat and more important that they avoid the attack at all costs.

When the Barden mutants' proposal to ask _unregistered_ mutants for help went public, even more pushback came from the lingering sentiment that the 'fugitives' were behind the attacks in Houston, Chicago, and New York. However, Aubrey's carefully timed comment about the FBI's lack of proof or transparency on their investigation turned the tide back in their favor.

The combined effects of fear and distrust in the transitioning administration paved the way for the revocation of unregistered mutants' vigilante status and now the Barden mutants only needed to wait for logistics to follow through.

The 'useful' group had already been transferred to Fort Benning, where they promised to work with an army general to strategize the plan of action against Donald. They were temporarily housed among the military families rather than in the barracks (the rush to pass the revised MRA had left little time to construct specialized buildings for them), which was a welcome surprise. But even more surprising was the fact that most of the men and women of the armed forces were also welcoming to them _—_ not at all cautious—and they soon realized why.

On the day the group of unregistered mutants was scheduled to arrive, the Barden mutants first reunited with a different acquaintance. Seeing a teenaged boy chatting with an army private on the steps of the venue, Jesse nudged Aubrey's elbow. "Hey, isn't that—?"

"They're here!" the boy cried, seeing the trio enter the building. As he ran up to them, Aubrey recognized him instantly.

"Marcus!" she said in surprise. "I didn't know you were stationed here."

"I wasn't, but after they heard about the plan, they flew me back from Afghanistan," he replied with a slight boast. "It's so cool that everyone's working together now!"

"He's the guy I protested against joining the military, isn't he?" Beca whispered to Jesse, who nodded and said, "Looks like he's doing pretty well, huh?"

Marcus had grown taller in the past few months and was wearing a uniform that Beca hadn't seen elsewhere in the base. As the young mutant later explained, he wasn't exactly enlisted in the military—and neither were they—but he held an honorary position ever since his first successful mission helping detect IEDs.

"Everyone's been really great," he shared enthusiastically. "It was a bit scary at first, 'cause they were all these tough, intimidating soldiers who practically lived in the line of fire. But they were actually really nice and fun people to hang out with; they taught me some cool stuff and pretty much treated me like a little brother. I'm sure you guys will have a great time here."

Beca resisted the urge to point out that it was a pleasant experience for him only because his powers were useful but harmless, whereas most of the mutants brought to the base had potentially destructive powers (Benji was the obvious exception). But it turned out that Marcus had a different explanation for why he was treated well.

"The people here don't really care for politics," he said. "They just want to see results, not the drama, which is why it's perfect that we're all working together to fight this new Heartless! Seeing mutants helping the military is the best way to get people to like us more. And they're all on board, too! They think it's like fighting alongside superheroes."

It was easy to feel uplifted by Marcus' words and to see beautiful irony in that the very force instructed to subdue mutants should the need arise was the one that proved that mutants and non-mutants _can_ get along well. Beca and the others were careful to take them with a grain of salt, as the situation was still volatile.

But the mutants had a plan to end the volatility soon and that would come into play after Donald's next attack. When they formally submitted their proposal to Congress, Aubrey and Cynthia Rose had actually crafted a plan that was already two steps head, to eventually lead to a _permanent_ lifting of the vigilante status and, if they could push it that far, to getting rid of registration altogether.

The plan required the public to be more grateful to mutants and receptive to their wishes, which was why it hinged on their victory against Donald. Though the circumstances were tragic, his painful experience was a blessing in disguise that could actually put an end to the oppression of the MRA.

* * *

The building's entrance swung open a few minutes later and Cynthia Rose entered, followed by Luke, Stacie, Bumper, Alice, and Unicycle. If it was odd to see them casually walk into a military base without fear of being apprehended, Beca didn't notice. She was more concerned about their number.

"It's just the _five_ of you?" she asked, not bothering to hide her disappointment.

"Hello to you, too, Beca," Stacie said sarcastically. "We've been well, thanks for asking."

Beca rolled her eyes but forwent mentioning that they just met two weeks ago. Their plan had progressed so favorably that she expected to be permanently reunited before long. "You _do_ know what got you guys a free pass, right? We asked for your help to _fight._ "

"And we came to fight," Unicycle said confidently.

"But—"

"I don't see the problem here, Mitchell," sneered Alice. "After what we've been through, I'm pretty sure five of us is just as good as ten of you. _We_ can handle a fight."

Beca bristled. "What _you've_ been through?!"

Before an argument could form, the general arrived for their meeting and led them to a conference room in the upper floors of the building. Once they were all seated around the glass table, he began by providing intelligence reports from the attack in Damascus and interviews with the Barden mutants, and shared them with Luke and his team. Luke and Bumper then gave their account of what they believed happened to Donald after leaving the school.

"He said if he couldn't learn to touch people then there wasn't a point in staying," recalled Bumper. "I agreed at the time, but I thought he was just letting off steam. I didn't seriously talk to him about it…"

"His parents were mulling over sending him to India," added Luke. "That's the extent of what I knew about his plans after Barden."

"So he didn't actually learn to control anything?" clarified Beca. "Benji said he was in the Book."

"Well, when I started compiling the notes, the Professor told me that the nature of Donald's powers—the fact that it's contact-based—meant that he couldn't just turn it on and off like what most of us can do," said Luke. "But in terms of not severely harming the person he touches, the Professor was confident that Donald could control the intensity of his absorption, so he was deemed not dangerous and allowed to leave."

"But there are a _billion_ people in India," Stacie pointed out. "Why would he allow Donald to go to a place so densely populated?"

Luke paused thoughtfully. "He said his parents threatened to send him to the monks. I took it to mean a Hindu monastery, where he could live an ascetic life."

"A what?" Unicycle frowned.

"Withdrawn from the world. Abstinent."

"Oh..."

Beca stared into space, watching her imagination play the story for her. A young man shunning himself from society, perhaps unwillingly, to be a recluse in some ancient isolated temple…

"Kommissar traced the leak to India at one point," she said out loud. "That had to be Donald."

"So he was already amassing darkness even before he got to the lab in Japan," murmured Aubrey. "But why?"

Completely lost in the conversation, the general cleared his throat. "Forgive me but how does this help us take him down? Miss Posen, you convinced us that you absolutely needed your friends to make the enemy vulnerable to an all-out attack. So far we've just determined that he was more unstable than any of you realized despite being given the all-clear to leave your school."

The entire table of mutants looked at him with hardened expressions. Acknowledging his lack of finesse for suggesting they get on with the death of one of their own, he added, "I only push because the next attack could happen at any moment."

"The general is right," Luke admitted. "We'll have to discuss how Donald got to where he is later. Now is the time to form a battle plan."

And so they began to work on a strategy to defeat a mutant-Heartless hybrid that could turn people, and mutants' powers, against each other. At the end of the long meeting, the general gave them all a fair warning, though emphasized to the five unregistered mutants.

"Listen. I don't give much of a damn about what the MRA says or who's on the FBI's most wanted mutants list. I'm not too out of touch not to see that bad politics are afoot," he said gruffly. "I only care about defense. Protecting these United States is my one and only job. You came here under sketchy conditions to help me _do_ my job and I'm not one to turn down a volunteer. But," his eyes narrowed, "if you cause me or my soldiers trouble, consider it an offense that we will not likely forgive or forget. And that goes for _all_ mutants."

* * *

"You know, I don't think he meant that," Bumper said casually, as Aubrey and the others led them to the unregistered mutants' designated temporary house moments later. "I think he kinda likes us."

As they passed the deserted children's park, Beca felt a small tremor that she had long since associated with Fat Amy doing something ridiculous—which, she suddenly remembered, included Bumper. "I wouldn't trust your gut on this one," she commented vaguely.

"Why not?" scowled Bumper. "I've got great instincts."

"History has proved otherwise…"

Thankfully, Beca was spared another surprise reunion between the two and their group reached the cottage without much trouble. Once inside, Luke began explaining, cryptically, that they had had to split their resources between this mission and something that could possibly be as equally important.

"And you can't tell us what it is?" Jesse asked curiously.

Luke shook his head. "Not now. Not while we're in the middle of an army base."

"Oh, so you _don't_ think the general is on our side?" Beca asked sarcastically. "That'll be a blow to Bumper's ego."

"Give me some credit. I have better instincts than he does," grinned Luke.

* * *

" _Lana will be okay. It appears that she has merely fainted from exhaustion. The doctor said she should wake up in a couple of hours."_

 _Donald nodded shakily._

" _Nobody blames you for trying," the Professor said with a sigh. "In theory it made sense. You can't touch skin but could you touch_ diamond _skin? Lana deserves some credit for her intellectual curiosity."_

 _Still, Donald didn't speak._

" _Why don't you tell us what happened?"_

 _Like clockwork, Charlene clicked her pen and rested the tip on her notepad. Donald cleared his throat and began. "It worked… for a few seconds. I felt her hand… the crystal… and then… it got warm."_

" _Do you think she reverted to her own skin? Just to see what might happen?"_

" _She—I didn't…"_

 _Donald paused._

 _Was possible that Lana had done it intentionally? A sort of challenge to herself to touch the untouchable?_

 _But the sequencing of events didn't make it likely, so he shook his head. "She felt something, and then went soft. And what usually happens when people touch me happened to her," he added bitterly. "She fell and…"_

 _He recalled the warm sensation that engulfed his body after touching her skin._

" _I got her powers."_

 _It was a testament to the gravity of his statement that the Professor didn't immediately ask him to clarify. In any case, it was not a vague statement; 'I got her powers' could only mean one thing. The Professor froze and his look turned serious—more serious than anything Donald had ever seen on him. Even Charlene's eyes flashed with emotion._

" _Do you still…?"_

 _Donald shook his head again. "It didn't last long. At least, I think it didn't. I was too shocked to understand what was going on."_

 _The Professor exchanged looks with his assistant, then back to Donald. "Do you think—?"_

" _Professor, I've made a decision." Donald surprised himself with the conviction in his tone, considering how scared he had been earlier, but discovering what he_ really _did to people when he touched them had cleared his mind. "I want to leave Barden."_

" _But Donald, we can train you to control it—"_

" _I don't need to train this. And I don't need to control it, not if I don't ever have to touch anyone."_

 _It was touching not lab mice nor his sixth grade classmates but people_ with special abilities _that finally revealed to him the mechanism of his powers. He had always thought that physical contact was just harmful, that people simply felt pain when they touched him._

" _You don't have to live your life hiding from people," the Professor said gravely. "You can stay here. You_ should _stay here."_

" _I'm sorry, Prof. I don't mean to say that what you're doing here is ineffective," said Donald. "But it's like you told me when I first got here: the world may not be ready to understand what we do, but our powers are always our own. Only we can decide how to use them."_

 _The fainting was merely a side effect. He now understood what he was actually doing…_

" _And I'm choosing not to."_

 _It was theft._

* * *

The unregistered mutants spent the first two days living at the base adjusting to their newfound 'freedom.' Those who missed it—like Alice, Bumper, and Unicycle—wasted no time reacquainting themselves with sleeping in beds with frames instead of bags that could be easily rolled up on the go, taking showers with sufficient hot water for everyone, and eating food that didn't come with Luke's pointed reminder that stealing is wrong.

As soon as they had adjusted, they immediately began training with the registered mutants. It was a throwback to the old days, nearly a year ago, when they trained in teams to fight Heartless or (secretly) enter the Realm of Darkness.

"I can't believe we're going to fight _Donald_ ," mused Unicycle, aiming a spinning kick at Beca's head. He was more graceful off his unicycle than he was on it, though it was largely thanks to the kung-fu movie he had watched the night before. "He was a huge softie as I remember it."

"Just because he didn't hit on almost every girl on campus like _you_ did, doesn't make him a softie," snorted Alice, dodging Jesse's flying rock.

"'Almost'? Who did I miss?"

"Posen. I don't remember you hitting on her."

Aubrey, who was sending flurries of lightning toward Luke, turned red and accidentally hit Bumper in the ass.

"Ow!" the toad-boy yelped.

Fat Amy took advantage of her sparring partner's momentary distraction and belly bumped him with her enlarged body—"POW!"—sending him flying across the training grounds.

"No fair!" Rubbing his ass, Bumper retaliated with a slime ball that Beca half-heartedly deflected with an air swipe on her way to Stacie. Bumper glared at the interference and rolled up his sleeves. "Oh-ho-ho! So it's gonna be like _that_ , huh?"

Unicycle and Alice stopped in the middle of their respective fights to exchange mischievous looks with Bumper, and Beca, Fat Amy, and Jesse nodded at each other in turn. They all looked equally eager to tag-team against their counterparts, but not before an exasperated go-ahead from Luke and Aubrey.

It was five against five, and all at once. Cynthia Rose started the fight by throwing a smoke die in the middle of the battlefield to make things interesting. Alice started to fly above the smoke but Beca anticipated her move and intercepted. The pixie narrowly dodged an air blast that sharply cut through the smoke and fluttered her wings ferociously to create her own gust of wind energy.

"Hey, that's new," Beca mockingly praised. "But I bet it's not stronger than mine."

Beca matched the attack with a downward sweeping air swipe and was shocked to see it simply pass through Alice's instead of negating it. She realized that the rings headed towards her were not made of air but of _sonic_ energy and she barely dodged them—one caught her foot and sent her off balance.

Meanwhile, on the ground below, Beca's four teammates surrounded the cloud of smoke, hoping to catch their opponents off guard once they realized they weren't in there.

Aubrey blinked and turned her head toward a dark shadow forming near her side. She didn't hesitate to send a razor-thin bolt of electricity powerful enough to only stun her target. She felt it strike the ground and the force cleared away part of the smoke to reveal… nothing.

Reacting to a swift movement behind her, Aubrey turned around with her arms in the ready position, only to trip over something strategically placed behind her ankles. She fell on her ass and found herself staring up at a smirking brunette, whose left arm was now slowly and menacingly binding her feet together like a python preparing to strangle its prey.

Stacie raised her eyebrows. "You won't go easy on me this time, will you?"

"Well, you _are_ worth two of me apparently," Aubrey replied in mock thoughtfulness. "If the math checks out, I'll have to double my effort."

True to her word, Aubrey did not hold back; she electrically charged her entire body. Stacie toughened her skin and rose to Aubrey's challenge, even urging her to keep going. When a stalemate was inevitable, Aubrey pulled her legs up to her chest, placed her hands flat on the ground beside her ears, and kicked her legs to bring herself to a standing position with her feet still bound.

As a result, Stacie was pulled down into a half-bow and instinctively released Aubrey's ankles, but her momentary instability left her open for the blonde to strike her lightly on the shoulder with an electric whip.

Stacie looked up from her forwardly bent position and smirked. "Kinky. I didn't know you were into that."

Before Aubrey could respond, Stacie did her own flip, bringing her right leg over her head and landing it squarely between Aubrey's chest, which sent the blonde reeling backwards. She then struck Aubrey playfully on the thigh with her own elastic whip formed from her arm.

Aubrey shook her head in amusement. "This is getting a little—"

 _BOING!_

They turned their heads just in time to see Bumper once again flying through the thin mist of smoke still left on the battlefield. They followed his trajectory until he passed right between them, at which point he spat a huge glob of green slime at Aubrey's face and used his tongue to adhere to the mucus and steady himself. As he did, Aubrey's face was pulled down into a pile of mud and dragged for a few feet.

Fat Amy's humongous body quickly came rolling towards Bumper, who was desperately trying to free his tongue from Aubrey's electric grip, but Stacie's outstretched torso intercepted her. In her stubbornness, Amy kept pushing forward, believing she could get the stretchy mutant to give in first.

And Stacie almost thought she _would_ give in first, if it hadn't been for Bumper's carefully aimed slime after he hopped on top of Aubrey to get her to release him. Thus, when Fat Amy rolled one inch further, she landed on a frictionless ground and flew in the opposite direction.

On the other side of the battlefield, Luke raised his eyebrows and leaned to the side to look behind his opponent, wondering what could possibly be approaching them that quickly—

 _BAM!_

Jesse had seen Luke's expression and had, unfortunately, turned around. He was smacked face-first into a part of Fat Amy's vast body that he hoped was neither her front nor her behind—but his worries evaporated when he felt Luke's cold metallic body slammed into his own behind.

The three continued to tumble across the field without losing momentum because, as she was flying around trying to dodge Alice's attacks, Beca spotted the mutant mélange and decided to use it to her advantage. She landed on the ground a few yards before it, wound up, and swung her Keyblade upwards, sending a strong enough gust of air to send them soaring like a giant baseball straight toward Alice.

The pixie underestimated Fat Amy's size and durability; her sonic wave did nothing to hinder the ball's ascent. Fortunately for her, Luke recovered his wits and released his grip on Jesse to slide down Amy's spherical body. He dexterously grabbed onto Fat Amy's leg and the sudden downward weight changed their flight path, forcing a descent into the middle of the continuing two-to-one fight between Stacie, Bumper, and Aubrey.

After Luke literally ejected himself from the imminent crash, Jesse was left to prevent it. He tightened his grip on Fat Amy with one hand and faced the other downwards. With a tug, he raised the ground in an upward slope that strategically curved to the side so that, when Amy landed, her body rolled along the path and brought her crashing back into an unsuspecting Luke.

Jesse didn't have time to celebrate, however, as Unicycle quickly got behind him and tackled him to the ground.

* * *

Emily stared out the window and onto the training grounds. Where there had once, at the height of summer, been half a dozen students playing and using their powers was now just a large empty patch of overgrown grass. As the Barden Institute got increasingly scrutinized, it became important for the mutant to appear as uninteresting and inconspicuous as possible—no powers in public, no extravagant purchases.

Having arrived at Barden at the start of its decline, Emily didn't miss either of that, but it wasn't difficult to imagine what life there was like prior to the discovery of mutants. Simply observing the relationships between her trainers and the trust they had for each other made it clear what kind of place Barden had been.

The Barden Institute of the past few days was nothing like it. The handful of students left after segregation lived dreary, almost dystopian, lives. As model mutants made to convince the public that their kind was able to blend in with society, they were only allowed to do 'normal' activities even while inside the institute. They ate, slept, attended home school—and everything was documented.

The only instance they were allowed to use their powers was to learn to control them. As part of the deal to allow unregistered mutants to help fight against Donald, Aubrey had given up access to the Book. But with inexperienced scientists and military officials conducting their training, there really wasn't much excitement in it anymore.

"Miss Junk, is there something out the window more interesting than today's lecture?"

Emily turned to face the blackboard and felt only slightly ashamed. The new homeschool teacher was no more pleasant than the last, but Emily was less optimistic about his reasons for being harsh. Of course, it could all be in her head but—

Something out the window suddenly caught her eye and she couldn't resist turning back. The teacher noticed and sternly placed his hands on his hips.

" _Miss Junk—_ "

"Sir, there _is_ something more interesting happening outside. And... I suggest you get out of here before it get worse."

Her classmates immediately rushed to the window and saw the dark black-and-purple mass forming in the center of the training field below, while their teacher darted to the guard stationed at the door, demanding to know what was happening.

"It's a Heartless!" the mutant with camouflaging powers exclaimed. "Those things Aubrey and the others fight!"

"Look!"

A bright orange creature came sprinting from within the mansion and slowly began circling the dark figure at the center of the field. Emily recognized it instantly as Kimmy Jin in her tiger form; she was the only mutant of legal age left in the mansion and the only one who had experience actually fighting Heartless with the Beta team.

"We have to help her," Emily said at once. Her gut told her that this was no ordinary Heartless; it could be Donald. She touched her hand to the glass to phase through it—

"Wait! Emily, what about us?"

"Yeah, what do we do?"

Emily was turned in surprise, not expecting her classmates to come to _her_ for instruction. As she looked at them, she noted that not all were eager to lend a helping hand; most of them, in fact, looked scared.

 _What would Beca do?_

Realizing that Beca would likely head straight for the fight without a plan, Emily decided it was best to settle on what Aubrey would do.

"Those who want to fight, go help Kimmy Jin. The rest of you take cover underground. The others will be here soon, I'm sure of it."

The students mobilized quickly and efficiently, to the surprise of the non-mutants in the room. Neither their teacher nor his government-issued security guard attempted to stop the teenagers from going head to head with a terrifying creature.

* * *

By design, the mutants left at Barden weren't exceptionally good at offensive combat, but Emily knew they only had one job: to keep everyone safe until Beca and the others arrive. Unfortunately, dodging the mutant-Heartless' attacks and keeping out of reach was not as easy as it sounded, especially against an enemy that had the strength of a Heartless and the berserk mentality of a wronged mutant.

A ferocious growl from Kimmy Jin distracted Donald from noticing the arrival of more adversaries. The vortex kid and his camouflage friend had gathered sticks and stones from the edge of the gardens and sent them flying through an air funnel the former had learned to create by watching Beca.

Another growl—a warning—came and Emily called to the two, "Get away!"

Donald turned and paused in confused anger. There was no one behind him.

The two mutants stayed perfectly still, camouflaged onto the tall grass. Frustrated, Donald turned to the source of the cry and started sprinting toward Emily instead.

The brunette stood her ground firmly, knowing that the mutant-Heartless couldn't hurt her, but seeing the speedster head her way she rematerialized her hand and grabbed onto him as he passed.

"I have an idea," he explained after setting her down on the edge of the forest. "You can make objects transparent, too, right?"

"You mean intangible?"

"Yeah, sure. Can you do that to these trees?"

Emily looked up at the thick trunks. "I guess." Then it hit her. "Oh, I get it. Can you get him here?"

The speedster shrugged. "Should be easy enough. He seems like a hotheaded jackass; all you gotta do it taunt him."

"All right—just _don't_ touch him, okay?"

With a nod, the speedster ran off to inform Kimmy Jin and the vortex kid of the plan to lure Donald into the forest. Emily started to hide behind a trunk when the camouflage kid appeared and ushered her further in.

When they were all in position, Kimmy Jin and the speedster antagonized Donald and lured him into the forest where he attempted to chase Kimmy Jin. As the forest got denser, Kimmy Jin was able to sneak away undetected, putting Donald in the middle of a dead silent forest.

The speedster startled Donald backwards into the tree behind which Emily had been hiding. She quickly made the trunk intangible and was careful not to touch Donald as he fell through it backwards. She timed her release and sighed in relief when their plan had worked; Donald was effectively stuck in the trunk of a thick ash tree with only his legs, hands, and forehead sticking out.

"Awesome," the speedster praised, giving Emily a high-five. "Now we just have to—"

A growl and a "Watch out!" alerted them of Donald's movements. Suddenly the air around them felt darker and gave them an unpleasant feeling in their chests.

Emily fought against the heavy atmosphere and focused on Donald; the tree was starting to split in two as he struggled to escape. When he inevitably cut through the wood, Emily simply repeated the maneuver, phasing a portion of the upper half and letting gravity bring it down over Donald before removing her hand once more.

The process repeated, with Donald getting more and more adept at breaking through his unusual prison. And just when she started to worry that he might catch on to the rhythm, Emily miscalculated the time needed to press her palm against the wood, which required her to be tangible, and Donald managed to grab on.

" _No!_ "

Emily had never felt such an intense feeling in her life. It wasn't pain; she knew pain from having fallen though floors numerous times. She felt utterly _drained_ , first of her energy, then of her hope.

 _This must be what the darkness feels like…_

A furious yell broke Emily's descent into unconsciousness, and she felt a wave of air, perfectly formed and powerful, brush lightly past her. Fortunately, Donald had yet to control his newly acquired power, and a fraction of his body was not yet fully phased, which allowed Beca's attack to deal the damage it was meant to.

* * *

"Tommy?" Flo nudged the hacker on the elbow and pointed down at the paper in her hands. "This word means what?"

Tommy rubbed his tired eyes and looked at the Latina who, since joining their motley crew, had been very eager to help out but was also disastrously _un_ helpful in the entire process of sorting the documents due to her language barrier.

The group had managed to piece together all of the shredded papers, correctly, thanks to a huge push the night before, working nonstop until sunrise. Tommy thought the job of sorting them into coherent groups would be easier, but with thousands of papers to sort through, the task seemed almost impossible.

"You know what, Flo, why don't you take a break?" he said sleepily. Justin would take over his shift soon; the biologist had more patience to deal with Flo.

"No. I'm fine, thank you," she responded brightly, then pointed back down to the paper. Since numbers were universal, they tasked her to find any documents with discernible page numbers and sort them in order. "This word means what? Because the page number, it goes two-four-four and then two-six-three. But it is the same group, no?"

Tommy frowned and took the papers from her. Flo was actually on to something. He trusted her enough to be thorough, so he didn't ask if she had bothered searching for the missing pages. Instead, he asked for the word she was confused with. She pointed.

"Sanitized," he muttered.

"Yes. What does it mean, _sanitized_?"

"It means something was removed for security purposes," he explained distractedly. Could these be the documents Justin read? With a painful twist in his gut he realized that over a week's worth of work would be useless if the FBI had gotten to it first. "Justin! Justin, wake up!"

 _Blip._

Out of the corner of his eye, Tommy saw a flash of red alerting him of the news on his computer screen. He clicked on it instinctively but didn't have to read the body of the article to know that it was Donald.

He was attacking the Barden Institute.

"Everyone, _wake up_!"

* * *

Once Emily and the other underage mutants were convinced to return to safety inside the mansion with Benji, the battle that took entire days to prepare for finally began. But even at ten against one, the mutants couldn't initiate a fight with Donald on account of his intangibility. So instead, Luke and Bumper approached him cautiously to begin negotiations.

"Hey, dude… bro…" Bumper offered awkwardly. "It's been a while, huh?"

Luke took a moment to look at Donald. He now understood what Beca and the others had described as half-mutant and half-Heartless; while Donald retained his human facial features, his body reeked of the familiar darkness prevalent inside the Realm of Darkness and found around particularly powerful Heartless. His movements were manic and jerky, and judging by the tree he had swung at them as they approached from the skies, his strength was boosted by his dark side.

"Donald!" called Luke. "It's us—it's your friends!" He made to dodge a flying branch but it merely slipped through Donald's intangible hands. "We can help you!"

A Corridor materialized in the middle of the field and out walked Kommissar and Pieter. "His heart is blinded by the darkness," she said casually, as though she were just dropping by on a lazy Sunday afternoon. "Yours cannot reach his no matter how strong the connection."

Beca overhead this and frowned. Chloe once told her that their hearts were connected and that it was strong enough to bring them back together from across different worlds. But before she could point this out, Donald proved Kommissar's point by charging at his 'friends.'

Because of Emily's powers, neither of Luke or Bumper's attacks could hit Donald, but the instant he got near enough, he could rematerialize just a portion of his body and drain them of their own powers, so they immediately retreated.

Their strategy, once Donald had worn out Emily's intangibility, was simple and identical to Kommissar's original plan in Damascus: overwhelm him, avoid his touch, and make sure that no more than one or two powers get absorbed. Once he was _truly_ down, Beca would swoop in and cleanse his heart. After days of training together in various combinations, the plan seemed failsafe.

Kommissar, on her part, kept an eye on the darkness levels. She had noticed a significant imbalance that was not present during her first two encounters with Donald. His darkness, without feebler hearts to pass them onto, was accumulating inside.

"Be careful," she told the Keyblade wielder, flying close to Beca as they waited for the moment to strike. "He is close to a full transformation. We must finish the battle before he does."

"Will he get stronger if he completely turns into a Heartless?" asked Beca.

"Well, the last time a mutant became a Heartless, a man got trapped in the Dark Margin for ten years," Pieter commented casually. "I would say it has disastrous consequences."

"Right." Beca cast a sideways glance at Kommissar. "You said he couldn't connect to other hearts… that his heart is blinded by the darkness. Was that true?"

Kommissar nodded uninterestedly, watching Donald move around the field dodging Jesse's rock spikes. "Darkness is strongly attracted to light and will consume it immediately. In you humans, the light is usually friendships, or love, or some such nonsense."

Beca rolled her eyes. She opened her mouth to retort but spotted something more important. "There! It's wearing off."

Apparently noticing the same thing, Aubrey called out, "Attack!"

It was now twelve against one, with Beca, Jesse, Aubrey, Luke, Bumper, and Alice throwing down their attacks from long range, while the rest used their respective abilities to throw harmful projectiles at Donald.

Their first attack was massive and it effectively brought Donald down, but the team had learned from previous mistakes. They did not assume he was down for long. Indeed, once he was on his feet, Donald began trying to get close to at least one of them and absorb his or her powers. Fortunately, hour-long games of serious tag had trained the mutants to maintain a maximum distance at all times.

Beca noticed the skies getting darker, reminiscent of the last mutant-Heartless they had fought. The air thickened even further and she felt her Keyblade tingle in anticipation. "Be careful!" she warned everyone. "He's continuing his transformation!"

"How do we stop it?" said Luke.

"We can't. We have to beat him before he turns into a Heartless!"

"Sounds easy enough. Any idea how long that'll take?" Alice yelled back sarcastically.

Far in the distance, a purple portal opened. Lilly popped her head in, saw that she was a couple hundred yards from her target, and opened another one off the side of the battlefield.

"Reinforcements are here!" called Unicycle as a handful of unregistered mutants, including Lilly and Flo, exited the portal.

Knowing how important it was to achieve victory, Cynthia Rose had asked Luke to allow the rest of the unregistered mutants to help when the confrontation with Donald eventually occurred, and he agreed. It was the main reason he had left Lilly with them.

"Are you satisfied with our numbers _now_?" Stacie smirked towards Beca, who responded with a nod and aimed her Keyblade at Donald.

"Let's end this!"

* * *

When planning their strategy at the base, the mutants had come up with a list. It was a hierarchy of powers that absolutely _must not_ be absorbed, if they could help it. Instantly at the top of the list were powers that would help Donald gain even more powers by making it easier to touch others; so Stacie, Beca, and Lilly were given extra priority (protection) in case Donald came too close to touching them.

But in order to minimize the chances of him touching any single mutant, they kept themselves spread across the field in a circle, which meant that the most mobile ones were also in charge of taking others out of tricky situations.

And therein lay the key to Donald turning the tides half an hour into the fight: the most mobile mutants _were_ those at the top of the list. All it took was a momentary lapse of judgment, a disregard for priority, and a strong instinct to protect a friend no matter the cost to send things unraveling once again.

What they saw as Donald running around in arbitrary directions, desperately trying to catch one of them off guard, was in reality a shrewd strategy to get one particular mutant to do his bidding.

Bumper spat out a glob of slime at a spot in the ground he was _sure_ —for the nth time—that Donald was heading for, only to curse loudly when his target turned sharply to the right. The grass was tall enough to cover the patches of slime that had accumulated all over the field, so when Donald felt satisfied with his trap, he began chasing the most unpredictable one of the group.

Fat Amy was quite mobile herself. She could turn her giant spherical body into a rolling boulder, as she often did to steamroll others, and get away if needed. But there were two problems with her doing that now: the most obvious was that, unless she went off in a straight path toward the horizon, it would break formation.

The second problem was only apparent to Donald and Bumper.

"Wait—stop!" Bumper yelled, seeing Amy roll towards the center of the circle, perhaps hoping it would lure Donald into an ambush. Instead, Amy found herself caught in the globs of sticky goo he had released earlier to try and pin Donald down.

Milliseconds before Donald lunged the last few feet between him and Amy, Lilly formed a portal right beneath the large mutant and another one yards away in an upright position so that Amy's gravity contributed to the force with which she exited, sending her rolling safely back into her original position.

Several pairs of eyes scanned the center of the field, ready to strike—but it was deserted.

"Amy, behind you!"

Everyone held their breaths and time slowed down for them to best witness the inevitable fall of their teammate—but it never came. In the panic and hurry to get Amy away from Donald, several things happened at once.

Lilly opened another portal (this time to separate Donald from Amy), Beca sent a strong gust of wind to push Amy out of the way while Stacie shot her an arm out to do the same, and Jesse created ripples in the earth pushing everything into chaos.

Stacie got to Fat Amy first due to proximity, so what went through Lilly's portal was _not_ Amy but Beca's gust of wind that, when through to the other end, inadvertently hit an unsuspecting Aubrey and pushed her closer to the site of confusion.

Meanwhile, the ripples in the earth made Amy's escape bumpier—literally—and rather than roll off smoothly like a kicked ball, she bounced into the air and headed on a collision course with Aubrey. Jesse managed to divert Amy away once again with a curved path overpassing Aubrey's trajectory while simultaneously softening his girlfriend's fall with a sand pit underneath.

With everyone else's attentions maddeningly focused on trying to locate Donald, nobody noticed him hiding in plain sight.

Right before she landed on the curved path, Donald released his grip on Fat Amy's combat suit and landed on the edge of the sand pit, a few feet behind Aubrey.

Her back was turned because no one expected him to forgo absorbing Amy's 'Fat Power' for a much more useful one.

* * *

Donald felt a familiar rush of fresh energy coursing through him as Aubrey fell weak in his arms, and he formed an electric shield to deflect the rapidly incoming rocks, metal discs, bombs, and globs of acid, and to disintegrate the blasts of wind and sonic energy. He capped off their attack with his own massive wave of electricity, which he harnessed from the dark clouds above to bring nearly everyone to their knees.

The anger and pain his enemies were experiencing fueled the darkness inside him, and Donald felt himself absorbing the emotions as well. His senses dulled and the faces before him turned into blank, unrecognizable shapes. He realized that mutants had a much stronger resistance to the darkness than ordinary humans, and his was quickly growing past the amount he could siphon off. With an inhuman growl, he pushed Aubrey to the ground and sniffed the air for the enticing scent of her heart.

Donald raised his nearly claw-like hand and aimed it downward. But before he could pierce the body that contained the object he sought to consume, a powerful grip prevented him from continuing further. He looked up to see the other female mutant restraining him with her elastic arm. He couldn't register her face for emotion, but he could _sense_ her fury as clearly as if it were physically emanating from her skin.

He shot another blast of electricity and was amused to see that she did not slacken her hold. He hit her wave after wave but she only continued to coil around his arms and steadily pull him away from his target. When she had managed to wrap all the way up to his shoulder, Donald scowled and tugged hard. He tried ripping her sleeves with his free hand but the material was impervious to cuts.

While most were still down from the shock, Luke—the only other conscious mutant, being immune to electricity in his metallic body—sprinted toward the fight, seeing an opening to bring Aubrey out from beneath Donald while Stacie had him trapped. He passed Beca on his way and helped her up.

"Stacie has him in a hold," he said quickly. "You have to release his heart before he takes Aubrey's!"

Despite still lacking full control of her legs, Beca thrust herself forward with air. It wasn't as fast as flying but she got between Donald and Stacie in time to distract him from the incoming blow.

Luke threw a heavy, metallic punch across Donald's jaw, forcibly facing him the other way while he quickly lifted Aubrey off the ground and ran.

"Beca, hurry!" cried Stacie, who had had electricity coursing through her entire body nonstop for almost two minutes.

Though Donald could no longer understand human speech, he could still detect exhaustion from their auras. He strained forward, startling Beca into taking a leap backwards. Stacie attempted to keep him rooted on his spot, but every inch she stretched further proportionately decreased her strength, so she resorted to taking steps forward, keeping an eye out for what Beca was doing.

"Time it!" she instructed, feeling certain that the creature advancing toward them was less human than he was Heartless. "Stay behind me and—"

All it took was a misstep. Stacie's foot landed on another one of Bumper's slime patch and she twisted her ankle in surprise, giving Donald the chance to rush forward.

Beca instinctively blocked him with the Keyblade, keeping her upper body leaning as far back as she could without losing her balance. She was anxiously aware that Donald's other arm was completely free to grab at her, but the Heartless inside him must have felt the threat, because he instantly recoiled upon seeing the blade.

Sensing its doom, the Heartless roared and unleashed another electric wave at Beca in self-preservation.

The pain was searing hot and intense, but what was worse was that Beca could see he was nearly complete with his transformation. The threatened darkness magnified Donald's stolen abilities but Beca withstood the shock for as long as she could, telling herself that it would all be over if she could just… release… his… heart.

* * *

They failed. _Beca_ had failed. Donald had taken her powers, then Stacie's, and combined them to unleash hell on all the mutants before they could recover. And because they had failed to defeat the single, most evident mutant threat to humanity, Beca gained nothing for their unregistered friends and condemned even the registered ones to a life of further scrutiny…

At least, that was the scenario that kept playing in Beca's imagination.

She felt her head fall back into soft, slightly damp grass and opened her eyes. Her view of the dark grey sky was partially obstructed by the underside of Kommissar's sharp, chiseled jaw as the dark goddess continued to stare ahead at the battlefield.

Beca raised herself to a sitting position, feeling pins and needles everywhere in her body. She felt and heard movement from beside her and saw Stacie and Aubrey also rising groggily, with Luke and Pieter—and, Beca realized after making a quick head count, everyone else—behind them. They were all watching the fight as intensely as Kommissar was, some with dumbfounded expressions.

So, if they were all here… who was fighting Donald?

At that moment, Beca's ears registered the sound of distant screaming and she immediately turned toward the noise. What first caught her eyes were a pair of spiked boots at the end of jean-covered legs, and a black leather jacket hooked over the shoulder of a brunette, who was also facing the battlefield with her arms half-crossed, not far from the line of mutants. Further ahead was another woman with strawberry blonde hair, all bundled up in sweaters.

From the way the two were positioned, one might guess that _they_ were protecting the mutants from an attack.

Curious, Beca shifted her elbow to look past the two women and finally saw who had the guts to go against Donald without the safety of their numbers.

Her eyes widened in alarm.

Chloe was standing almost precisely where Beca had been moments before she succumbed to the current flowing through her body. But unlike her, Chloe was not surrounded by white-hot tendrils of energy. In fact, Donald wasn't even doing _anything_ to her. He appeared to be standing just as still, the only difference being that he was screaming his head off at her in anger while she merely gave him a blank look.

"Chloe!" Beca scrambled to her feet. She didn't know how much time had passed since Donald absorbed Aubrey's powers, but there was no good reason for Chloe to be that close to danger.

The strange woman closest to them turned at the sound of Beca's cry and grabbed her arm before she could even get upright. Beca struggled against her initially but stopped when they came face to face with each other. The boots, skinny jeans, and general likeness put the pieces together for Beca to realize that this was the shape-shifter who stole her look and tricked Chloe.

Beca had a trove of questions reserved at the back of her mind, but she knew this wasn't the time (nor the particular shape-shifter) to answer them. Although for some reason—or possibly because her mind was playing tricks on her—the woman's uncanny smirk seemed to answer them for her.

"Chloe was right. You are shorter than you look on TV."

Beca roughly pulled her arm out of the shape-shifter's grip and glared at her for a good three seconds before turning back to Chloe.

"Don't interrupt her," the woman warned more seriously. "Chloe needs to concentrate."

The blonde woman standing between them and Chloe looked over her shoulder. When her eyes met Beca's, something in them knowingly pleaded her to ignore her protective instincts and not to do anything rash.

"Just wait. And watch."

Beca twisted around to look at her friends and fellow mutants for their reactions. They seemed just as confused as she was but to a point that they simply heeded the strangers' words without question.

"Chloe… she…" Jesse muttered in awe.

Beca faced the battlefield again to understand what he meant. She could now see that Donald was actually struggling against something invisible; the vein in his neck was starkly visible as he roared at the redhead before him.

But Chloe was just standing there. She didn't flinch or show any recognition that he was an enemy, much less a threat to her safety. Her eyes, ever more strikingly blue against their dull surroundings, were locked onto Donald's harsh, yellowing ones. But they were uncharacteristically emotionless. She wasn't moving her arms or standing in a martial arts-based stance either—she wasn't even bunching her fists; her hands simply hung by her sides.

Chloe was restraining Donald with only her _mind_.

Suddenly, the animalistic shrieking was cut short by a choking sound; it appeared that Chloe had had enough of Donald's yelling. Again, there had been no movement, not even a blink, from her. She had effortlessly silenced Donald, paralyzed him, and was now lifting him into the air, without breaking a sweat.

Beca was beyond impressed. Chloe was their perfect ally; Donald couldn't possibly touch her—he couldn't even _move_ —and this was all achieved without any cost. Beca knew this was the perfect opportunity to end the fight once and for all, so she summoned her Keyblade and started forward.

* * *

 **Response to Reviews:**

 **xcombixgirlx (Jun 9)** \- Thank you so much! I really appreciate it when someone appreciates my attention to detail :) because it honestly is difficult to keep track of them haha. I see their ship called 'Bemily' on Tumblr lol and... hmm... I guess it's not a spoiler if I say that Emily _does_ get to use her time travel soon. I wouldn't write it in this season if it didn't play an important role, right? ;) I feel bad for making the enemy someone that used to be at Barden but the reasons will be revealed in the next chapter! Hey, that's a good idea to get them to practice in the darkness! In a parallel universe it could've happened that way lol. Yeah, I felt guilty for not putting too much Jaubrey in the past chapters so I just wanted to show that they're still a couple. Sorry for the Chloe tease! I had to cut it there 'cause it was getting really long haha.

 **RJRMovieFan (Jun 14)** \- The pieces are all set. It's almost time to step back and see the big picture. Sorry for how little Chloe is shown in this chapter. I assure you her role will be much bigger in the finale. TBH, I did picture the Phoenix Force as well, back when this was planned to be a quick story. I've strayed since then but I always keep it in mind. The Staubrey moment I've been building up to will be in the finale... gosh, I hope it doesn't feel crammed with everything else. I was worried that Emily's character might seem rushed—from the shy, Bechloe fangirl, to finding herself in the middle of this important event and stepping up.


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